fro 


From  the  Other  Side 

Stories  of  Transatlantic 
Travel 

By 
Henry  B.  Fuller 

Author  of  The  Chevalier  of  Pensieri-Vani 
With  the  Procession,  etc. 


Boston  and  New  York 
Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company 


COPYRIGHT,   1898,   BY  HENRY  B.  FULLER 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

THE  GREATEST  OF  THESE I 

WHAT  YOUTH  CAN  DO 94 

THE  PILGRIM  SONS 142 

PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 205 


FROM   THE   OTHER  SIDE 


THE  GREATEST   OF  THESE 

YES,  I  think  I  may  say  that  in  gen 
eral  my  portraits  are  rather  well  thought 
of.  By  "  my  portraits "  I  mean,  not 
those  that  other  people  paint  of  me,  but 
those  that  I  paint  of  them.  Stanhope, 
too,  shares  the  common  opinion,  though 
what  we  artists  think  of  an  opinion  that 
is  purely  literary  everybody  knows.  He 
is  constantly  referring  to  my  "art."  I 
seldom  refer  to  his.  That  piques  him. 
But  I  do  not  acknowledge  that  literature 
is  an  art,  —  except,  perhaps,  in  some 
secondary,  subsidiary  sense ;  for  of  late, 
it  is  true,  "we  others"  have  rather  fa 
vored  that  me'tier.  But  we  must  frame 
our  pictures. 


T,H4E.  QR,EATEST   OF   THESE 

•  My : portraits,  yes.  My  Trois  Vieilles 
iF.emmes  r^c&ived  honorable  mention  at 
the  last; Salo'n';  -niy  Woman  of  a  Certain 
Age  is  just  now  causing  considerable 
comment  at  Burlington  House. 

All  accounts  agree ;  all  strike  the 
same  note  :  it  is  always  and  ever  my 
"eye  for  character."  The  unified  voice 
of  appreciation  never  falls  below  "  pene 
tration,"  and  often  enough  it  rises  even 
to  "  divination."  Stanhope,  in  his  "  art," 
tries  for  the  same  things,  but  he  wastes 
a  great  many  words,  for  his  medium  is 
wholly  wrong.  Sometimes  I  "probe  a 
complicated  nature  to  its  depths ;  "  some 
times  I  "  throw  a  flood  of  light  upon 
the  "  —  And  so  forth,  and  so  forth. 

Very  well ;  let  them  keep  it  up ;  let 
them  employ  their  "  art "  to  glorify 
mine. 


I   became    acquainted   with   Madame 
Skjelderup-Brandt  rather  suddenly.    But 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

that  is  the  way  things  go  in  Sicily,  espe 
cially  at  Girgenti,  where  people  feel  as 
if  they  had  about  reached  the  Ultima 
Thule  of  the  South,  and  where  there 
exists,  therefore,  something  of  a  dispo 
sition  to  hang  together.  Perhaps  this 
comes  from  those  last  few  hours  in  the 
train,  where  everybody  seems  to  carry  a 
gun  or  a  revolver  as  a  matter  of  course  ; 
perhaps  from  the  necessity  of  huddling 
together  through  the  evening  in  the  ho 
tel,  from  which  no  one  thinks  of  issuing 
to  the  town  on  the  hill  above,  or  even 
to  the  humpy  and  betufted  environs  of 
the  house  itself ;  perhaps  from  the  fact 
that  there  is  a  single  well-established 
route  through  the  island  for  travelers, 
one  and  all,  and  from  the  feeling  that  it 
is  better  to  make  one's  acquaintances 
near  the  beginning  of  it  than  near  the 
end. 

I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Madame 
Skjelderup-Brandt   near   the    beginning 
(not  that  I  learned  her  name  till  I  met 
3 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

her  again,  months  afterward,  at  Flor 
ence).  She  came  in  to  dinner,  sat  down 
beside  me  at  table,  and  within  three  min 
utes  we  were  on  the  best  of  terms.  I 
saw  at  once  that  she  had  character ;  my 
finger-tips  tingled  for  a  pencil ;  I  was 
almost  for  "  getting  "  her  on  the  table 
cloth.  Her  prompt  friendliness  was  most 
opportune,  for  the  Dutch  baron,  across 
the  table,  had  just  turned  me  down.  In 
response  to  my  modest  salutation  he  had 
dropped  his  cold  eye  to  his  plate,  and  I 
thought  I  saw  him  communicating  to 
that  chill  and  self -sufficing  utensil  a 
sulky,  even  a  dogged  determination  not 
to  let  me  know  him.  Yet  how  was  I  to 
have  apprehended  that  he  was  Dutch, 
and  a  baron,  and  proud  of  his  family, 
and  away  from  home  for  the  first  time  ? 

"Leave  him  alone,"   mumbled  Stan 
hope  at  my  elbow. 

"  I  'm  going  to,"  I  responded.     "  So 
are  the  rest,"  I  added,  for  there  was  a 
vacant  seat  on  each  side  of  him. 
4 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

Madame  Brandt  leaned  a  little  my 
way,  as  she  busied  herself  in  a  review  of 
her  forks  and  spoons. 

"  That  young  man  has  a  good  deal  to 
learn,"  she  said  to  me  under  her  voice. 
She  crinkled  up  her  dark  eyes  with  a 
kind  of  suppressed  joviality,  and  drew 
her  mouth  down  at  one  corner  by  a  sort 
of  half-protestant  grimace.  Did  her  ac 
cent  produce  the  grimace,  or  did  her 
grimace  produce  the  accent  ?  It  was  the 
slightest  accent  in  the  world ;  was  it 
Hungarian  ?  I  wondered.  Then  she  said 
something  —  perhaps  the  same  thing 
over  again  —  to  a  pair  of  young  girls  on 
the  other  side  of  her. 

"  He  has  indeed,"  I  rejoined  expres 
sively.  Whereupon  she  crinkled  those 
dusky  eyes  of  hers  for  me  once  more, 
and  I  felt  that  we  might  easily  become 
friends. 

I  put  Madame  Brandt  down  for  about 
forty-three.  She  ran  to  the  plump,  the 
robust,  the  durable,  and  she  was  dressed 
5 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

in  a  way  that  achieved  elegance  with 
little  sacrifice  of  individuality.  Her  dark 
hair  was  slightly  grizzled  ;  her  shrewd 
eyes  still  twinkled  merrily  under  their 
fine  black  brows  at  a  discomfiture  that  I 
was  unable  altogether  to  conceal ;  and 
her  sturdy  little  hands  (they  had  ever  so 
many  rings,  yet  they  contrived  to  ex 
press  as  few  hands  do  a  combination  of 
good  sense,  good  nature,  and  thorough 
going  competence)  still  busied  them 
selves  with  the  forks  and  the  spoons,  as 
her  straight,  decided  lips  made  a  second 
shadowy  grimace,  the  comment  of  a  wide 
traveler  on  provincial  pride  wandering 
abroad  for  the  first  time. 

Our  menu  promised  great  things.  The 
house  was  "  of  the  first  rank,"  and  the 
dinner  was  to  be  of  corresponding  state. 
There  were  difficulties  :  the  milk  had  to 
come  sterilized  from  Palermo,  and  the 
meats  were  sent  down  all  the  way  from 
Lombardy  ;  yet  we  got  through  the  eight 
courses  that  our  rank  demanded.  As  the 
6 


THE    GREATEST    OF   THESE 

fish  came  on,  our  number  was  increased 
by  one  :  a  middle-aged  lady  entered  and 
sat  down  on  the  baron's  right.  She 
was  a  quiet  little  body,  with  a  pale  face 
and  eyes  of  a  timid  and  appealing  blue. 
She  seemed  embarrassed,  distressed,  de 
tached.  Stanhope  figured  her  (a  little 
later  on,  after  allowing  himself  a  due 
margin  of  time  to  get  his  literary  en 
ginery  into  play)  as  some  faded  water- 
bloom,  rudely  uprooted,  and  floating  away 
who  could  say  whither  ?  This  poetical 
analogy  made  no  great  impression  upon 
me  ;  her  face  was  far  from  offering  itself 
with  any  particular  degree  of  usefulness. 

However,  we  both  agreed  that  she  did 

look  detached. 

"Decidedly  so,"   affirmed   Stanhope. 

"  And  if  nobody  speaks  to  her,  I  '11  do 

it  myself." 

But  Madame  Brandt  greeted  her  very 

kindly,   with   a  sort   of   unceremonious 

good  nature,  — as  if   for   the   tenth  or 

twentieth  time,  —  and  yet  with  a  deli- 
7 


THE   GREATEST   OF   THESE 

cate  shade  of  consideration  and  con 
cern. 

"  Your  turn,  now,"  I  said  to  the  baron, 
—  inaudibly,  it  is  true.  "Don't  go  on 
fussing  over  that  fish-bone;  it's  only  a 
pretense.  Look  up,  I  say." 

He  must  have  heard  me.  He  raised 
his  eyes.  His  glance,  though  cool,  was 
civil,  and  he  gave  her  a  word  of  conven 
tional  greeting. 

"That's  better,"  I  commented.  The 
little  lady  appeared  to  become  a  trifle 
more  self-assured,  more  animated. 

"  Something  might  be  done  with  her, 
after  all,"  I  thought.  "My  revolt  against 
the  jeune  fille  has  carried  me  to  great 
lengths." 

"What  is  such  a  type  doing  in  a  ho 
tel,"  questioned  Stanhope,  "  and  in  a 
hotel  so  far  away  from  home  at  that? 
A  domestic  body,  if  ever  I  saw  one ; 
she  does  n't  even  know  how  to  take  her 
place  at  a  public  table.  She  has  cleared 
the  entire  distance  between  her  own 
8 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

home  and  this  hotel  in  a  single  jump. 
Did  you  ever  see  anybody  so  timid,  so 
deprecatory,  so  propitiatory,  so  " 

"  Your  language  !  "  I  sighed.  Then, 
"Why  should  she  be  frightened?  We 
are  only  a  dozen  all  told." 

Stanhope  ran  his  eye  round  the  table. 
"  She  makes  us  thirteen." 

"  I  am  not  superstitious,"  I  declared. 

"  Nor  I.  But  what  can  have  brought 
her  so  far,  and  have  hurried  her  along 
so  fast  ? "  he  proceeded. 

"  So  far  ?  So  fast  ? "  I  repeated.  "  Oh, 
you  literati  will  never  take  a  thing  as 
it  is  ;  you  will  never  be  satisfied  with 
a  moment  of  arrested  motion.  Action, 
movement,  progression,  —  you  must  al 
ways  have  your  little  story  going  on." 

"  But  you  will  agree  that  she  is  from 
the  far  North.  Don't  you  see  the  Bal 
tic  in  her  complexion  ?  Don't  you  see 
the  —  h'm  —  the  Teutonic  sky  in  her 
eyes?" 

"  What  I  see  is  that  you  are  coming 
9 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

round  to  my  way.  Bravo  !  It 's  surpris 
ing  how  seldom  you  do  get  my  point  of 
view." 

"  Don't  think  I  'm  trying  to  invade 
your  province,"  he  rejoined.  "You 
won't  mind  if  I  wonder  whether  she  is 
an  invalid  ? " 

"  She  hardly  looks  ill,"  I  replied. 
"  Worried,  if  you  like,  anxious,  under 
some  severe  strain." 

"  Undoubtedly.  Now,  there  ;  what  did 
the  lady  on  your  right  say  to  her  ? " 

For  Madame  Brandt  had  addressed  to 
the  newcomer  what  seemed  to  be  a  few 
words  of  sympathetic  inquiry,  employ 
ing  certain  specific  vocal  lilts  and  inflec 
tions  that  she  had  already  employed  in 
addressing  the  two  young  girls  just  be 
yond. 

"  How  do  /  know  ? "  I  asked  rather 
pettishly.  "  Tell  me  what  language  the 
lady  on  my  right  was  speaking  in.  Tell 
me  what  country  the  lady  on  my  right 
is  a  native  of.  Tell  me  the  name,  coun- 

10 


THE   GREATEST    OF    THESE 

try,  rank,  and  title  of  the  individual  op 
posite  who  has  undertaken  to  be  silent 
in  all  the  languages.  Tell  me  the  na 
tionality  of  that  high-shouldered  youth 
behind  the  <§pergne,  —  the  one  with  those 
saffron  eyes  and  that  shock  of  snuff- 
brown  hair.  Give  me  the  origins  of  the 
elderly  ringleted  female  up  at  the  head 
who  has  staked  out  her  poodle  at  the 
table-leg.  I  know  abbe's  and  lieutenants 
and  curates,  especially  English  ones ; 
there  's  nothing  else  I  'm  sure  of.  Oh 
dear,  what  is  that  poor  woman  trying 
to  tell  the  waiter  ?  He  speaks  Italian, 
English,  and  French  ;  won't  any  of  the 
three  serve  her  ?  " 

The  little  lady  from  the  North  was 
looking  up  from  her  plate  of  belated  soup 
into  the  waiter's  face  with  an  expression 
of  perplexed  appeal. 

"  Can't  you  help  her  ?  "  growled  Stan 
hope. 

I  made  some  advance  in  French,  but 
uselessly.  Madame  Brandt  came  to  her 


n 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

aid  in  her  own  special  idiom,  and  then 
communicated  with  the  waiter  in  Ger 
man. 

"  Ah,  you  speak  everything !  "  I  said 
to  her  with  an  abrupt  informality  not 
unlike  her  own. 

"  Oh,  we  who  come  from  the  little 
countries  !  "  she  returned,  with  a  careless 
good  humor.  "But  there  are  greater 
linguists  than  I  in  the  house,"  and  she 
pointed  toward  the  chair  opposite  that 
still  remained  vacant. 

Just  before  the  removal  of  the  entre"e 
this  chair  came  to  be  occupied. 

"Fourteen  at  last!"  breathed  Stan 
hope. 

Another  woman  entered,  and  the  sor 
rowful  little  creature  from  the  Northland, 
after  a  word  passed  with  the  newcomer 
in  the  only  language  of  which  she  her 
self  seemed  to  have  a  command,  accom 
plished  a  depressed  and  inconspicuous 
exit. 

"Thirteen  again  !  "  sighed  Stanhope. 
12 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"Don't  twang  that  string  any  longer," 
I  remonstrated. 

The  new  arrival,  who  had  come  on  with 
much  directness  and  self-assurance,  and 
had  seated  herself  with  all  the  self-posses 
sion  in  the  world,  gave  the  waiter  a  hint 
about  the  smoking  lamp  in  Italian, favored 
the  company  with  a  brief  but  compre 
hensive  salutation  in  French,  unfolded 
her  napkin,  and  achieved  a  swift  and  easy 
dominance  of  place,  people,  and  occasion. 

It  was  one  more  "woman  of  a  cer 
tain  age."  I  trod  on  Stanhope's  foot. 
"What  do  you  think  of  this  ?"  was  my 
meaning.  My  pressure  was  full  of  im 
plication,  even  of  insinuation.  He  made 
no  response,  —  he  whose  intuitions  are 
his  constant  boast. 

Of  a  certain  age,  yes.  But  what  age  ? 
Thirty  -  five  ?  Thirty  -  seven  —  thirty- 
eight  ?  Single  ?  Married  ?  Widowed  ? 
Divorced  ?  A  lady  or  —  not  ? 

Once  more  I  trod  on  Stanhope's  foot. 
This  time  his  foot  pushed  mine  away. 
13 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"  Work  it  out  for  yourself,"  —  that  was 
plainly  what  he  meant. 

Well,  then,  a  woman  of  thirty-seven  ; 
rather  tall  than  not ;  neither  stout  nor 
thin,  yet  noticeably  big  -  boned  ;  and 
dressed  in  black  brocaded  silk.  Of  ro 
bust  constitution,  perhaps,  yet  not  in 
robust  health.  Her  face  pale,  worn;  not 
haggard,  yet  full  of  lines,  —  weathered, 
apparently,  by  a  long  and  open  exposure 
to  the  storms  of  life.  Her  hair  (none 
too  carefully  arranged)  already  turning 
gray.  Her  cheek-bones  high -set  and 
wonderfully  assertive,  —  what  was  her 
race  ?  Her  eyes  (of  a  bright,  bold,  hard 
blue)  most  markedly  oblique,  —  what 
was  her  lineage?  Her  wrists  thick;  her 
hands  large  and  rather  bony,  yet  white 
(even  blanched)  and  well  kept ;  her  nails 
carefully  trimmed,  but  one  or  two  of  her 
finger-tips  discolored  as  if  by  some  liquid, 
not  ink,  —  what  were  her  interests,  what 
was  her  occupation  ?  Her  chin  firm,  de 
cided,  aggressive  — 
14 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

(Artichokes  ?  Stewed  in  something  or 
other  ?  No,  thank  you.  Artichokes  have 
no  raison  d'etre  beyond  the  pleasure 
they  give  one  in  picking  them  apart  leaf 
by  leaf,  and  for  that  they  must  be  dry. 
I  will  wait  for  the  roast.) 

—  firm,  decided,  aggressive.  Her 
mouth  —  if  I  may  express  myself  so  — 
open ;  I  mean  large,  frank,  without  pre 
tense,  guiltless  of  subterfuge.  No  diffi 
culty  there.  But  those  eyes,  those  cheek 
bones  !  They  puzzled  me,  fascinated  me. 
They  threw  my  thoughts  forward  to  some 
new  country  that  I  had  never  seen,  to 
some  new  people  that  I  had  never  min 
gled  with,  to  some  new  life  broadly,  irre 
concilably  at  variance  with  our  own.  The 
face  they  helped  to  form  prompted  me 
to  the  sketching  out  of  some  novel  career 
altogether  unique  and  individual,  chal 
lenged  me  to  reconstruct  the  chain  of 
experiences  that  had  led  this  singular 
woman  over  what  rigors  of  unknown  seas 
and  mountains  to  the  mild  joys  of  this 
15 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

blooming  Sicilian  spring.  "  She  has 
lived,"  I  thought ;  "  she  has  looked  out 
for  herself  ;  she  has  character,  capacity. 
But  she  is  so  worn,  so  hard,  so  brusque, 
so  bold.  Is  she  —  is  she  "  —  and  I  said 
it  to  myself  in  a  whisper's  whisper —  "is 
she  —  respectable  ?  " 

I  appealed  to  the  table ;  how  were 
my  commensals  receiving  her  ?  Just  as 
they  would  receive  anybody  else,  appar 
ently.  Yet,  was  she  accepted,  or  did  she 
impose  herself  ?  For  she  took  the  ini 
tiative  from  the  start.  She  knew  every 
body.  Stanhope  and  I  were  the  only 
new  arrivals  of  the  day.  She  greeted 
Madame  Skjelderup-Brandt,  —  well  and 
good.  She  greeted  the  two  gray  doves 
by  madame's  side,  and  they  modestly 
responded,  —  better  and  better.  She 
accosted  the  baron  in  German,  and  ex 
tracted  a  whole  sentence  from  him  in 
reply,  —  best  of  all.  She  had  a  word  for 
Toto  tied  to  the  table-leg,  and  received 
acknowledgments  in  some  unclassified 
16 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

jargon  from  Toto's  mistress,  —  highly 
satisfactory.  But  the  English  curate, 
he  of  the  lank  limbs  and  the  underdone 
countenance?  Ah,  he  is  not  cordial. 
(How  long  has  he  been  in  the  house  ?) 
And  the  curate's  lady,  with  her  desic 
cated  physiognomy,  is  coldly  mute.  (How 
much  does  she  know  of  the  world  ? ) 
And  the  head  waiter  himself,  —  is  his 
attitude  that  of  friendly  good  will,  or 
that  of  careless,  open  disrespect  ? 

I  felt  Stanhope's  foot  against  mine. 
I  started.  "  I  —  I  beg  pardon  !  " 

"  I  was  only  saying,"  said  the  voice  of 
the  object  of  my  conjectures,  with  her 
look  partly  on  my  face  and  partly  on  the 
label  of  my  wine-bottle,  "  that  you  would 
have  done  better  to  select  some  local 
growth  ;  our  Tempij,  for  example.  Mar 
sala  is  generally  fortified  beyond  all  rea 
son." 

I  glanced  at  Stanhope.  I  decided  that 
her  advances  must  have  begun  with  him, 
and  have  reached  me  by  a  subsequent 
17 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

stage.  But  I  found  them  abrupt  and 
irregular,  all  the  same. 

"  Marsala  is  a  local  growth,  according 
to  most  people's  notions  of  Sicily,  is  n't 
it  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Poor  Marsala,  —  after  they  have  fin 
ished  with  it !  "  she  observed,  taking  her 
own  bottle  in  hand. 

I  shall  not  say  that  her  voice  was 
harsh  or  rough,  though  her  vocal  chords 
must  have  had  their  own  peculiar  ad 
justment.  I  shall  not  insist  that  her 
English  had  an  accent ;  least  of  all  shall 
I  insist  upon  what  particular  accent  it 
may  have  been. 

She  pushed  her  bottle  across  toward 
me. 

"Try  it,  anyway.  It  is  nothing  re 
markable,  but  you  will  see  a  difference." 

"  Dear  me,"  I  thought,  "  this  is  most 
singular.  I  never  saw  such  directness  ; 
I  never  met  such  —  h'm.  She  breaks 
down  all  barriers  ;  she  dispenses  with  all 
conventions  ;  really,  she  lets  in  quite  a 
18 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

different  air ;  what  quarter  does  it  blow 
from?"  I  felt  the  eye  of  the  curate's 
wife  upon  me,  and  would  rather  have 
had  things  different. 

"  It  is  better,"  I  acknowledged.  "  My 
next  bottle  shall  be  the  same  as  yours." 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  should  have  put  it 
just  in  that  way  with  everybody. 

"You  stay  long  enough,  then,  for  a 
second?"  Why  should  she  want  to 
know  ?  Why  should  she  make  her  want 
known  so  baldly  ? 

"  A  day  or  two,"  responded  Stanhope. 
"  We  see  the  temples,  and  then  move  on 
-  to  other  temples." 

"  Like  all  the  rest,"  she  said. 

"Are  they?"  I  asked.  "We  hoped 
they  might  be  different." 

"  You  are  like  all  the  rest.  Nobody 
stops  long  enough." 

"  You  stay  longer  ? "  I  remembered 
her  reference  to  "  our  tempij." 

She  looked  thoughtfully  into  her  glass. 
"Yes,"  she  replied  in  an  altered  tone, 
19 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

a  tone  of  great  quietness  and  restraint ; 
"I  have  been  here  some  time."  And 
she  became  silent. 

After  a  short  lapse  the  conversation 
became  general,  and  she  reentered  it. 
Travel-talk  :  we  exchanged  feeble  no 
things  about  routes  and  accommoda 
tions  ;  we  praised  here,  and  we  con 
demned  there,  —  all  from  the  strict 
standpoint  of  personal  experience.  My 
Enigma  touched  on  the  hotels  at  Corfu, 
on  the  steamer  for  Tunis,  on  the  express 
for  Constantinople.  She  seemed  to  have 
been  everywhere,  to  have  seen  every 
thing,  to  have  met  everybody.  She 
evoked  responses,  more  or  less  in  kind, 
from  every  quarter.  Madame  Brandt 
grew  restive  under  all  this  indifferent 
discourse  ;  I  could  see  that  she  felt  her 
self  capable  of  handling  better  material. 
She  veered  off  toward  politics  ;  she  had 
her  own  ideas  on  everything  and  a  policy 
for  everybody.  Her  "little  country" 
was  evidently  outside  the  circle  of  great 

20 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

things ;  hers  was  a  broad,  external  vi 
sion,  and  embraced  all  powers  and  poten 
tates  in  its  easy  and  masterful  sweep. 
Politics  was  her  hobby  ;  so  she  mounted 
her  steed  and  swung  round  the  track 
finely;  she  kicked  up  a  tremendous  lot 
of  dust,  and  took  every  hurdle  without 
blinking  an  eyelash. 

But  this  demonstration  led  to  no  coun 
ter-demonstration  from  our  neighbor  over 
the  way.  To  all  other  leads  she  would 
respond,  but  not  to  the  lead  political. 
She  who  appeared  to  know  so  much  on 
every  other  subject  was  dumb  on  the 
subject  of  statecraft.  At  the  first  oppor 
tunity  she  gave  the  talk  a  strong  twist 
in  the  direction  of  art  and  literature. 
She  was  better  acquainted  with  the  new 
men  in  Paris  than  I  was  myself,  and  she 
made  easy  casual  references  to  men  of 
the  North  whose  names  I  had  never  even 
heard.  She  had  a  good  deal  to  say  about 
the  later  lights  in  Italian  literature, — 
especially  some  of  the  more  dubious 

21 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

ones,  whom  she  appeared  to  have  met 
personally ;  and  she  commented  with  an 
unceremonious  frankness  on  a  few  of  the 
more  fragrant  practitioners  of  present- 
day  French  fiction.  Stanhope  became 
completely  engrossed.  She  gave  him 
intimate  details  about  authors  he  was 
already  familiar  with  ;  she  made  sugges 
tions  for  readings  in  new  authors  whose 
names  he  had  barely  heard ;  she  launched 
him  bodily  upon  all  the  currents  and  cross 
currents  and  counter-currents  of  Conti 
nental  fiction,  —  she  almost  swamped 
him.  She  led  him  on  from  fact  to  the 
ory,  and  from  theory  to  practice,  and 
from  practice  to  ethics.  Those  strong 
white  hands  of  hers  took  a  firm  grip 
upon  the  trunk  of  the  tree  of  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil,  and  made  a  mighty  rus 
tle  overhead  among  its  leaves.  There 
was  one  moment  when  I  almost  thought 
I  saw  things  as  they  were,  —  all  things 
save  the  speaker's  self.  She  involved 
the  whole  table  :  the  baron  warmed 
22 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

to  life  ;  the   curate  flamed  in   protest ; 
the  saffron-eyed  young  man  (who  turned 
out    to   be   a   Croat)    clamored    against 
her  assumptions  and  conclusions ;  until 
Madame    Brandt,    who    was    as    deeply 
involved  as  anybody  (and  whose  expres 
sions  showed  at  once  a  wide  tolerance 
and  a  generous  idealism),  became  sud 
denly  conscious  of  the  presence  of  her 
offspring.     These  two  young   creatures 
sat  there  side  by  side,  with   downcast 
eyes  and  attentive  ears,  —  rather  discon 
certed  by  an  interchange  of  ideas  that 
had  never  before  come  within  their  ken. 
Their  mother,  returning  to  herself,  gave 
a   shrug,  laid  her  own  hand  upon  the 
trunk  of  the  tree,  and  quieted  down  its 
agitated  foliage  before  too  many  leaves 
had  detached  themselves  and  come  flut 
tering  down  in  the  wrong  direction. 

The  situation  had  been  most  promis 
ing,  most   inspiring.     Ah,  these   young 
girls,  these  tedious  young  girls,  —  how 
much  they  have  to  answer  for  ! 
23 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

We  were  at  the  fruit.  The  disputant- 
in-chief  stopped  the  waiter,  looked  over 
his  offerings  with  a  leisurely  yet  critical 
eye,  made  her  choice,  called  for  an  extra 
plate,  arranged  her  pears  and  grapes 
upon  it,  rose  unceremoniously,  bade  us 
all  a  brusque  yet  good-tempered  bon  soir, 
and  walked  out  of  the  room. 

I  looked  after  her, — with  a  certain 
intentness,  perhaps.  Then,  turning  back, 
I  detected  Madame  Brandt  looking  with 
a  like  intentness  at  me.  I  smiled  ;  but 
she  turned  away  without  any  change  of 
expression.  How  long  had  her  observa 
tions  been  going  on  ? 

I  followed  Stanhope  into  the  smoking- 
room.  We  had  it  to  ourselves. 

"Well?"  said  I. 

"  Well  ? "  said  he. 

"What  is  she?"  I  asked. 

"  Make  your  own  guess.  I  thought 
at  the  beginning  that  she  might  be  one 
of  those  Baltic  Germans." 

"She  isn't." 

24 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"  A  Dane,  then  ?  A  Finn  ?  A  Croat, 
—  another  of  them  ?  Or  a  —  a  "  — 

I  did  not  wait  for  further  conjecture. 
"Time  will  show,  perhaps.  She  is  a 
'  linguist,'  remember  ;  she  will  lapse  into 
her  own  tongue  in  due  course.  I  'm 
sure  she  has  n't  done  so  yet.  When 
she  does,  may  we  be  able  to  recognize 


it." 


"She  spoke  to  the  dog,"  submitted 
Stanhope. 

"  Humph  !  "  said  I.  Then,  "What  is 
she  doing  here  ?  "  I  added. 

"She  is  a  companion,"  he  replied. 
"  That  black  figured  silk—  her  one  good 
gown." 

"  If  you  are  going  to  be  farcical  !  " 
I  exclaimed.  "  '  Companion  '  !  Did  you 
ever  meet  any  one  less  secondary,  less 
subordinate  ?  " 

"  She  is  a  nurse,  then  ;  or  a  female 
courier,  —  she  knows  everything." 

"  '  Female  courier  '  ?  '  Female  free 
lance  '  would  be  better.  Couriers  and 
25 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

such  have  their  own  dining-room  here. 
She  is  an  adventuress." 

"  Don't  be  too  hasty,"  said  Stanhope. 

"  Well,  then,  a  grass  widow,  waiting 
for  the  husband  —  or  the  remittance  — 
that  never  comes.  She  's  been  here  some 
time,  it  seems." 

"  Don't  be  so  uncharitable,"  said  Stan 
hope. 

"How  she  talked,  before  those  chil 
dren  ! " 

"  She  said  what  all  thinking  persons 
must  believe." 

"  That  does  n't  help.  Come,  come, 
what  is  she,  then  ?  " 

"  A  political  agent,  perhaps.  She  fol 
lowed  every  other  lead  but  that  of  poli 
tics." 

"  Would  politics  lead  her  to  Gir- 
genti?" 

"  This  province  is  certainly  a  political 
factor;  those  sulphur  -  mines,  all  these 
communal  disturbances  "  — 

"  Nonsense." 

26 


THE   GREATEST   OF   THESE 

"Well,  then,  she  is  a"-— 
"  A  what  ?  "  I  demanded. 
"  A  cosmopolite." 

"I   see  you  are  at  the  end  of  your 
string,"  I  said. 

ii 

Girgenti  sits  whitey-gray  on  its  high 
hilltop  and  looks  out  upon  two  worlds : 
landward,  into  the  Inferno  of  the  sul 
phur-mines  ;  seaward,  over  the  Paradiso 
of  the  almond-groves.  The  two  worlds 
were  before  us,  where  to  choose :  should 
we  take  the  miseries  of  the  sulphur- 
workers,  evidenced  by  the  dismal  piles 
of  refuse  that  disfigured  the  stripped 
and  glaring  hillsides  of  the  interior,  or 
should  we  follow  that  long  and  suave 
slope  waterward,  where  bands  of  sing 
ing  peasantry  ply  their  mattocks  under 
the  tangled  shade  of  vine  and  almond 
and  olive,  and  where,  on  the  last  crest 
of  the  descending  terraces,  the  yellow 
and  battered  temples  of  the  old  Greek 
27 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

day  look  out  upon  the  blueness  of  the 
sea  and  up  into  the  blueness  of  the  sky  ? 
We  chose  as  artists,  not  as  philanthro 
pists,  not  as  humanitarians  :  we  took  the 
groves,  the  vineyards,  the  temples. 

We  were  well  into  the  latter  half  of 
February,  —  the  spring  had  fully  de 
clared  itself.  We  stepped  from  the  cof 
fee-room  out  upon  the  terrace,  to  take  a 
comprehensive  glance  over  the  field  of 
our  coming  labors.  The  morning  was 
cloudless  ;  the  air  was  fresh,  yet  mild ; 
groups  of  cypress-trees  rose  straight  and 
dark  through  the  pink  cloud-blooms  of 
the  almond-trees ;  and  the  sea  and  the 
sky  met  in  one  high,  clear,  uncompro 
mising  line  that  ran  from  the  tossing 
hilltops  on  our  left  to  the  long,  heaving 
promontory  on  our  right. 

"  Here  lies  our  day's  work  before  us  ! " 
I  cried,  —  "  map  and  panorama  in  one. 
There 's  the  first  of  our  temples  down  on 
the  ridge  just  behind  that  olive-grove, 
and  over  yonder  are  two  or  three  more. 
28 


THE   GREATEST   OF   THESE 

Where  is  the  one  they  make  all  those 
models  and  photographs  of,  I  wonder,  — 
the  one  with  the  three  or  four  columns 
and  the  bit  of  entablature  ? " 

"  More  to  the  right,"  said  Stanhope. 
"  Yes,  everything  is  laid  out  before  us, 
truly.  And  what  have  you  ever  seen 
more  Greek  than  this  landscape,  —  more 
marked  by  repose,  moderation,  symme 
try,  suavity  ?  And  how  can  we  see  it 
better  than  by  continuing  to  stand  pre 
cisely  where  we  are  ?  " 

"  You  are  right,"  I  returned.  "  This 
is  one  of  the  loveliest  landscapes  in  the 
world,  so  that  our  duty  toward  it  is  per 
fectly  clear :  we  must  trample  on  it,  we 
must  jump  into  the  midst  of  it,  we  must 
violate  it ;  we  must  do  everything  but 
leave  well  enough  alone.  Come,  the  road 
down  leads  to  the  left." 

So,  partly  by  means  of  the  highroad, 
partly  by  following  a  rocky  little  foot 
way  that  took  its  willful  course  between 
ragged  old  stone  walls  through  bean-beds, 
29 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

barley-fields,  and  olive-groves,  we  passed 
down  to  the  temple  of  Juno. 

The  temple  stands  on  a  sandstone 
ledge,  close  to  the  massy  ruins  of  the 
old  town  walls  ;  we  seemed  as  high  above 
the  sea  as  ever.  There  was  an  empty 
carriage  waiting  under  a  gnarled  old 
olive  near  one  corner  of  the  structure. 
Within  the  cella  we  saw  the  two  daugh 
ters  of  Madame  Brandt  clambering  over 
the  vast  broken  blocks  that  strewed  the 
pavement,  and  on  the  steps  outside,  with 
her  back  comfortably  fitted  into  the  flut 
ing  of  one  of  the  worn  and  weathered 
columns  of  yellow  sandstone,  sat  Madame 
Brandt  herself. 

"  You  are  early,"  she  said,  rising. 
"  But  we  are  earlier.  Let  me  welcome 
you,  let  me  guide  you,  let  me  introduce 
you,"  — with  a  genial  wave  of  the  hand 
over  the  whole  lovely  prospect.  Away 
above  us  was  the  rock  of  Athena,  which 
we  might  climb  for  the  view ;  away  be 
low  us  was  Porto  Empedocle  with  its 
30 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

shipping,  best  seen  from  a  distance.  In 
the  midst  of  the  landscape  —  the  heart 
of  the  rose,  she  called  it  —  was  the  old 
church  of  San  Nicola  with  its  gardens. 
"  Take  everything,"  she  added  ;  "  take 
even  this  beautiful  air,  if  you  have  a  page 
in  your  sketch-book  for  anything  like 
that."  She  became  suddenly  pensive. 
"  Such  a  day,  such  an  air,"  she  went  on 
presently,  "  would  make  a  sick  man  well, 
if  anything  could."  She  seemed  to  look 
back  toward  the  hotel. 

"  Oh,"  said  I,  fingering  my  sketch 
book,  as  it  stuck  half  out  of  my  pocket, 
"  I  don't  know  that  I  shall  do  anything 
in  particular.  Landscape,  architecture, 
—  all  very  nice,  but  no  human  interest. 
Good  background,  of  course,  but  some 
thing  more  needed  for  the  actual  sub- 
ject." 

"There  is  human  interest  every 
where,"  she  replied  in  the  same  pensive 
tone.  "  What  else  has  kept  me  here  ?  " 
she  added,  half  beneath  her  breath. 
31 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

Then  she  shook  herself,  and  her  old 
brusque  gayety  came  uppermost  again. 
"  I  'm  human  ;  I  'm  interesting.  So  are 
my  girls  ;  make  something  out  of  them." 

"  Nothing  better,  I  'm  sure,"  said  Stan 
hope.  He  began  to  climb  up  into  the 
cella;  the  two  doves  were  to  be  sum 
moned  forthwith.  The  division  of  labor 
begun  in  the  hotel  drawing-room  on  the 
previous  evening  was  to  continue,  then  : 
he  had  entertained  the  daughters  with 
the  last  battle  of  flowers  at  Palermo, 
while  I  had  listened  to  the  mother  on 
the  policy  of  Russia  in  Central  Asia. 
Stanhope  thinks  the  young  girl  indis 
pensable  ;  he  drags  her  into  all  his  sto 
ries,  and  is  always  trying  to  force  her 
into  my  pictures. 

"Don't  let  me  disturb  your  daugh 
ters,"  I  hastened  to  say.  "You  are 
here  yourself ;  you  're  in  the  foreground; 
you  're  practically  posed  already." 

"  But  my  girls  are  thought  rather  pret 
ty,"  insisted  Madame  Brandt  stoutly, 
32 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

from  the  length  of  battered  cornice  on 
which  she  had  seated  herself. 

"  H'm,"  said  I  in  return;  "the  prin 
cipal  thing  isn't  prettiness,  nor  even 
beauty.  The  principal  interest  is  in 
expression  ;  and  expression  comes  from 
experience,  and  experience  follows  on 
participation  in  life." 

"  Well,  I  have  participated,"  she  re 
joined  ;  "  I  'm  not  insipid,  if  my  poor 
girls  do  seem  so.  I  have  n't  vegetated ; 
I  have  —  I  have  —  banged  about  consid 
erable.  Is  that  the  way  you  say  it,  — 
'  banged  about  considerable '  ?  I  am  so 
fond  of  using  those  expressions,  though 
I  have  n't  kept  up  my  English  as  I 
should.  But  do  you  consider  me  very 
much  battered  and  defaced?" 

"I  would  n't  have  you  the  least 
changed,  —  unless  you  choose  to  change 
the  slant  of  your  head  the  merest  shade 
to  the  left." 

"Very  well."  Then,  "You  needn't 
come,  children.  Run  and  pick  some 
33 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

flowers ;   let   the    gentleman   help   you. 
Only  don't  go  very  far." 

"  There,"  I  said,  "  now  I  have  every 
thing  I  want,  —  you,  and  the  temple,  and 
a  bit  of  the  town  wall,  and  some  of  the 
tombs  in  the  wall  (you  said  they  were 
tombs,  I  think),  and  a  stretch  of  the 
sea-line  —  No,  it 's  too  much ;  move 
back  to  your  column,  please ;  I  shall 
take  you  just  for  yourself." 

"Very  well."  She  moved  back.  "But 
I  'm  not  sure,"  she  went  on,  with  a  little 
air  of  close  scrutiny,  "  that  I  like  to  find 
a  man  under  thirty  preferring  old  women 
to  younger  ones." 

"Character  is  the  great  thing,"  I  in 
sisted.  "  Besides  you  are  to  pass  on  me, 
not  as  a  man,  but  as  an  artist." 

"  There  is  a  difference,"  she  observed. 
"  You  will  go  to  Florence  ?  "  she  asked 
presently,  with  a  studied  little  effect  of 
absentness.  "It  is  full  of  pensions, 
and  the  pensions  are  full  of  dear  old  la 
dies." 

34 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

"Life-histories,  and  all  that,"  I  ad 
mitted.  "  But  I  find  the  same  thing 
here/'  I  said,  with  intention. 

"  Here  ?  Ah,  I  see,"  she  replied,  as 
she  glanced  upward  at  the  weatherworn 
stretch  of  entablature  that  still  bridged 
over  spaces  here  and  there  between  the 
columns  ;  "  one  old  ruin  reposing  in  the 
shadow  of  another  !  "  She  gave  a  quiz 
zical  squeeze  and  twinkle  to  those  dark 
eyes  of  hers. 

"  Of  course  I  don't  mean  you  !  " 

"  Do  you  mean  yourself  ?  Are  you 
really  so  world-worn  ?  And  I  thought 
you  seemed  such  a  good  young  man  !  " 

I  suppose  I  am  a  good  young  man, 
when  you  come  to  it ;  but  why  throw  it  in 
my  face  ?  "  No,  I  don't  mean  myself," 
I  protested. 

"  Oh,  I  know  what  you  would  say," 
she  went  on,  with  a  shrug.  "  It  is  sim 
ply  that  you  are  fond  of  reading  human 
documents,  —  is  that  the  way  you  ex 
press  it  ?  —  fond  of  reading  human  docu- 
35 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

ments,  provided  they  have  n't  come  too 
lately  from  the  press." 

"  Precisely.  Gothic,  black  letter,  un 
cials,  hieroglyphs,  —  anything,  in  fact, 
with  sufficient  age  and  character  to  make 
it  interesting." 

"  And  you  rather  like  to  puzzle  things 
out  for  yourself  ? " 

"  I  don't  like  to  be  helped  too  much, 
of  course." 

"And  you  generally  decipher  your 
manuscript  in  the  end  ? " 

"Why,  yes,  generally." 

She  rubbed  a  forefinger  over  the  face 
of  her  column,  and  detached  a  tiny  sea- 
shell  or  two  from  its  bed  in  the  yellow 
mass.  "  Well,  the  hotel  library  is  full  of 
old  things ;  some  of  them  fall  to  pieces 
in  your  hands." 

"  And  others  are  so  strongly  and  stiffly 
bound  that  you  can  hardly  force  them 
to  lie  open.  But  I  shall  read  them 
yet."  . 

"  Only  don't  take  hold  of  them  upside 
36 


THE    GREATEST    OF   THESE 

down ;  you  would  injure  your  own  eyes 
and  do  injustice  to  the  author's  text." 
She  fixed  her  look  on  my  pencil.  "  How 
far  have  you  got  with  me  ? " 

"  I  have  finished.  But  I  think  I  shall 
put  in  the  water-line  and  a  bit  of  the 
coast,  after  all,  to  remind  you  that  you 
are  four  hundred  feet  above  the  sea." 

"  What  is  four  hundred  ?  I  am  used 
to  four  thousand,"  she  declared  reck 
lessly. 

"  Four  thousand  ?" 

"Yes.  I  tramp  over  the  mountains. 
I  love  them.  They  do  me  good."  Then, 
"Well,  if  you  have  finished,  I  may  move, 
I  suppose.  I  must  have  those  children 
back." 

"Here  they  come,"  I  said.  "Their 
hands  are  full  of  flowers." 

So  were  Stanhope's.  The  pains  he  is 
capable  of  taking  with  mere  chits  of  six 
teen  and  eighteen  !  He  makes  himself 
absurd. 

"  Come,  girls,"  cried  Madame  Brandt 
37 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

joyfully,  "come  and  see  what  has  hap 
pened  to  your  mother  !  " 

The  girls  approached  with  shy  smiles 
of  decorous  expectation. 

"  Yes,  here  I  am,  true  enough,"  de 
clared  Madame  Brandt,  as  she  looked 
over  the  drawing.  "  Only  "  —  and  she 
stopped. 

Only  what  ?  What  did  she  find  amiss, 
in  Heaven's  name  ?  It  was  but  a  rapid 
impromptu,  —  not  fifty  strokes  all  told, 
—  yet  I  had  caught  the  woman  unmis 
takably. 

"  Only  you  have  n't  exactly  made  a 
Norwegian  of  me,  after  all." 

She  was  a  Norwegian,  then  ?  I  should 
never  have  guessed  it.  It  is  easy  enough 
now  to  descant  upon  Madame  Skjelde- 
rup-Brandt's  out-of-door  quality,  to  talk 
about  the  high,  clear  atmosphere  of  the 
North,  to  dwell  on  the  fresh  tang  of  the 
breezes  from  across  the  fjords.  .  .  .  Es- 
prit  d'escalier. 

I  must  have  seemed  a  bit  crestfallen. 
38 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

I  must  have  looked  as  if  I  expected  to 
be  told  that  I  had  simply  worked  my 
own  nationality  into  the  portrait,  —  most 
odious  of  all  comments.  I  think  she  saw 
that  she  must  make  amends. 

"  No,  you  have  not  made  a  good  Nor 
wegian  of  me  ;  but  that  may  be  because 
I  am  not  a  good  Norwegian.  You  look 
into  me  and  see  me  for  what  I  am.  You 
make  me  an  American." 

There,  she  had  said  it,  after  all,  and 
said  it  as  bluntly  as  you  please. 

"Why,  really"  -I  began  protest- 
ingly. 

"  You  see  more  than  the  mere  me,"  she 
went  on  quickly.  "  You  see  my  hopes, 
my  aspirations  ;  you  detect  my  secret 
and  cherished  preferences  ;  you"  — 

"Why,  really  "  —  I  began  again,  puz 
zled. 

"  It  is  a  real  piece  of  divination  !  "  she 

cried,  —  her  actual  words,  I  assure  you. 

"  How  could  you  know  that  I  have  a  son 

in  Milwaukee  ?     He  has  been  over  there 

39 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

two  years,  and  he  is  making  his  everlast 
ing  fortune,  —  or  so  I  hope.  *  Everlast 
ing  fortune,'  —  is  that  well  said  ?  Ah, 
thanks.  And  how  could  you  know  that 
I  have  a  sister-in-law  in  Minnesota  ?  She 
has  been  over  there  seven.  She  likes  it ; 
she  won't  come  back,  except  every  third 
summer  for  a  few  weeks.  And  how 
could  you  know  that  it  has  been  the 
dream  of  my  life  to  go  over  there,  too  ? 
I  think  of  nothing  else ;  I  read  their 
papers  ;  I  even  allow  my  daughters  to 
go  picking  flowers  round  ruined  temples 
with  new  young  men.  .  .  .  Oh,  how  you 
see  through  me,  how  you  understand  me, 
how  you  frighten  me  !  " 

"  Why,  really  "  -  I  began  once  more, 
half  flattered  ;  while  Stanhope  gave  me 
a  curious  glance  as  if  to  ask,  "  What 
has  been  going  on  here  ?  What  is  the 
woman  trying  to  bring  about  ?  " 

"  But  whatever  in  the  world  am  I  do 
ing,"  proceeded  Madame  Brandt,  "with 
a  Greek  temple  and  a  Mediterranean 
40 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

horizon  behind  me?  Your  background 
should  have  been  quite  a  different  one. 
You  should  have  stood  me  in  front  of 
an  elevator," — she  threw  out  her  plump 
arms  to  indicate  a  capacity  of  a  million 
bushels,  —  "  or  else  in  front  of  a  sky 
scraper.  Ah,  what  a  lovely,  picturesque 
word,  '  sky  -  scraper  ' !  I  'm  so  glad  to 
have  a  chance  to  use  it !  " 

I  reached  out  for  the  drawing.  "I 
will  change  it,"  I  volunteered. 

"Yes,"  said  Stanhope;  "change  it 
from  a  souvenir  to  a  prophecy." 

"  No,"  responded  Madame  Brandt ; 
"let  it  stay  as  it  is,  a  souvenir  and  a 
prophecy  combined." 

So  Madame  Brandt  remained  Grseco- 
American,  to  the  exclusion  of  her  native 
Norway,  —  that  was  the  "little  coun 
try."  And  if  she  were  Norwegian,  why 
might  not  the  other  two  ladies  be  Nor 
wegian  as  well  ? 

"You   are    not  without    compatriots 
here  ? "  I  was  feeble  enough  to  remark. 
41 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"By  no  means,"  she  assented. 

"The  little  lady  who  sat  opposite  us 
at  dinner  last  night  may  be  one  of 
them  ? " 

"Yes." 

"And  the  other  lady  who  sat  opposite 
us  might  be  one  of  them,  too  ?  " 

"No." 

She  concentrated  her  attention  on  the 
sketch.  "  You  are  so  clever,"  she  said,  — 
her  precise  words  :  "you  see  into  every 
thing  ;  there  are  no  secrets  from  you  ; 
everything  is  an  open  book  to  you,  —  or 
will  be,  in  the  end."  And,  "  No  help 
from  me,"  —  were  those  the  words  she 
barely  saved  herself  from  saying  ?  "  I 
shall  value  this,"  she  went  on.  "  I  shall 
lay  it  at  the  top  of  my  trunk ;  it  will  be 
the  first  thing  I  unpack  and  put  up  in 
place  at  Syracuse." 

Stanhope  and  the  two  daughters  were 
seated  on  a  wrecked  and  prostrate  col 
umn,  busy  with  the  innocent  blooms  of 
the  springtide. 

42 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"  You  go  so  soon  ? " 

"  Almost  at  once.  The  carriage  wait 
ing  there  under  the  tree  will  take  us 
straight  to  the  station." 

"  Oh,  fie ! "  said  I,  myself  casting 
about  for  some  floral  offering  that  would 
suitably  grace  this  departure,  — "  one 
might  almost  tax  you  with  seeing  Gir- 
genti  between  trains  !  " 

"  Quite  the  contrary.  We  have  been 
here  a  long  time, — much  longer  than 
I  could  have  foreseen.  This  is  the  last 
of  my  visits  to  the  ruins,  my  farewell. 
But  I  think  I  may  go  now  with  a  good 
conscience.  My  girls  " 

"  I  see.  Quite  right.  The  question 
is  whether  you  can  stay  with  a  good  con 
science.  I  am  no  more  an  advocate  than 
you  yourself  of  overplain  speaking  at  a 
public  dinner-table.  You  are  right  in 
wishing  to  remove  your  daughters  be 
yond  the  range  of  —  beyond  the  range 
of"  — 

"Beyond    the    range    of   Greek  art. 
43 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

Precisely.     They  are  almost  too  young 
for  temples  —  after  the  first  fortnight." 

"  The  lady  who  is  not  Norwegian,"  I 
began,  — "  it  may  be  that  you  do  not 
altogether  approve  of  her  ?  " 

Madame  Brandt  looked  at  me  with 
quite  a  new  expression  ;  was  it  a  smile, 
was  it  a  frown,  or  was  it  a  combination 
of  the  two  ? 

"  The  question  is  whether  she  will  al 
together  approve  of  me" 

"  What  charming  humility  !  "  I  cried. 
"  But  I  should  never  have  charged  you 
with  affectation." 

"Affectation  is  my  sole  fault,"  she 
said  dryly.  "  I  must  do  the  best  I  can 
to  remedy  it."  She  summoned  her  girls. 
"  Yes,  we  must  go,  but  I  hope  that  you 
will  be  in  no  hurry  to  leave ;  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  interest  here." 

"  There  will  be  less,"  I  said  gallantly. 

"Oh,  youth,  youth!"  I  thought  I 
heard  her  murmur,  "  how  far  is  it  to  be 
depended  upon  ? " 

44 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 
III 

We  saw  Madame  Brandt  off  for  Cata 
nia  and  Syracuse,  and  then  went  on  with 
our  temples.  We  passed  hither  and  thi 
ther,  through  lane  and  grove  and  field 
and  orchard,  and  took  those  entrancing 
old  ruins  one  after  another  in  all  their  dis- 
persedness  and  variety.  Some  of  them 
still  stood  upright  on  their  stocky  old 
legs,  and  lifted  their  battered  foreheads 
manfully  into  the  blue ;  others  had 
frankly  collapsed,  and  lay  there,  so  many 
futile  and  mortifying  heaps  of  loose 
bones,  amidst  the  self-renewing  and  in 
domitable  greenery  of  the  spring.  The 
last  temple  of  all  consisted,  as  Stanhope 
put  it,  of  nothing  but  a  pair  of  legs  and 
a  jaw-bone.  We  found  this  scanty  relic 
in  a  farmyard  that  stood  high  up  on  the 
sheer  edge  of  a  deep  watercourse,  —  a 
winding  chasm,  whose  sides  were  densely 
muffled  with  almonds  and  shimmering 
olives,  and  whose  bottom  was  paved  with 
45 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

groves  of  orange-trees  in  the  last  glowing 
stages  of  fruition*  Nothing  was  left  of 
the  temple  but  a  pair  of  broken,  stumpy 
columns,  and  a  bit  of  sculptured  cornice 
(in  the  egg-and-dart  pattern)  which  lay 
buried  in  the  ground  before  the  farm 
house  door,  —  that  was  the  jaw-bone. 
Through  the  velvety  cleft  of  the  water 
way  we  looked  up  to  the  town  high  above 
on  its  hilltop,  and  presently  we  began 
the  ascent  to  the  hotel,  passing  through 
one  of  those  steep  and  rugged  and  curi 
ous  sandstone  channelings  that  so  abound 
in  the  environs  of  Girgenti,  and  that 
might  pass  either  as  the  work  of  the 
artificers  of  the  old  Greek  days,  or  — 
equally  well  —  as  the  work  of  Nature 
herself,  the  oldest  artificer  of  all. 

At  lunch  we  found  the  places  of  Ma 
dame  Brandt  and  her  two  daughters  oc 
cupied  by  a  French  marquis,  an  abbe 
(his  companion),  and  a  missionary  bishop 
from  Arizona.  The  Dutch  baron  was 
again  in  isolation,  as  neither  of  the  two 
46 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

Norwegian  ladies  (so  I  called  them  for 
convenience'  sake)  appeared  at  table. 
However,  he  conversed  amicably  with 
the  marquis, — on  the  basis  of  the  Alma- 
nach  de  Gotha,  I  suppose.  But  their  talk 
had  no  interest  for  me  ;  the  absence  of 
the  three  ladies  of  the  evening  before 
(I  am  not  referring  in  any  way  to  the 
two  girls)  robbed  the  meal  of  all  its 
flavor.  Just  before  the  arrival  of  the 
cheese  the  bishop  began  on  the  cowboys 
and  the  Chinese,  but  I  am  not  at  all  sure 
that  I  gave  him  due  attention.  After 
lunch  the  bishop  and  the  curate  drew 
together  for  a  confab,  the  marquis  and 
his  abbe  settled  down  in  the  drawing- 
room  for  a  game  of  piquet,  and  Stanhope 
and  I  tramped  up  to  the  town  to  get  the 
cathedral  off  our  minds. 

The  cathedral  was  dull,  the  towns 
people  were  exasperating,  and  the  views, 
however  magnificent,  no  longer  possessed 
complete  novelty.  We  clattered  through 
a  good  many  streets  and  squares  with  a 
47 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

pack  of  dirty  and  mannerless  little  boys 
at  our  heels,  until  the  homicidal  spirit 
that  is  said  to  be  in  the  air  of  the  place 
began  to  stir  dangerously  in  our  own 
breasts. 

"This  won't  do,"  said  Stanhope,  at 
last.  "  We  've  seen  about  everything 
there  is,  and  I  don't  want  to  fill  up  the 
remaining  hours  with  murder.  What 
shall  we  do  ?  Where  shall  we  go  ? " 

"That  church  we  were  told  about,"  I 
suggested,  —  "  the  one  with  the  gar 
dens." 

"  It  must  be  down  under  that  group 
of  stone-pines.  Come,  it 's  only  half  a 
mile  ;  let 's  try  it." 

We  descended  toward  the  church  — 
the  old  church  of  San  Nicola — that  had 
been  so  pointedly  commended  by  Ma 
dame  Brandt.  Behind  the  church  there 
is  a  little  old  disused  monastery,  with  bits 
of  dog-tooth  and  zigzag  mouldings  about 
its  Norman  doors  and  windows  ;  below 
the  monastery  there  is  a  garden  with  an 
48 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

orange-grove  and  a  long  pillared  walk 
under  grapevines ;  above  the  garden 
there  is  a  mossy  and  neglected  terrace 
that  lies  under  the  shadow  of  a  spread 
ing  pine-tree  ;  and  seated  upon  the  ter 
race,  with  a  book  in  her  hand,  we  en 
countered  the  amazon  of  yester- eve's 
dinner-table. 

"  Dear  me  !  "  said  Stanhope,  —  rather 
blankly,  as  I  felt.  I  thought,  too,  that 
I  detected  displeasure  in  his  tone,  —  re 
pugnance,  possibly. 

The  lady  sat  in  a  rude  wooden  chair ; 
she  had  a  drooping  and  dejected  aspect. 
The  book  looked  like  a  volume  of  poetry, 
and  she  held  it  with  a  peculiar  twist  of 
her  thick,  peasant-like  wrist,  upon  which 
she  wore  a  silver  chain  bracelet,  whose 
links  were  larger  and  clumsier  than  they 
need  have  been.  She  was  still  in  black, 
and  if  her  face  had  seemed  lined  and 
worn  in  the  tempered  light  of  the  dinner- 
table  lamp,  how  much  more  so  did  it 
seem  in  the  searching  light  of  day ! 
49 


THE   GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"  She  is  absolutely  haggard,"  I  mur 
mured,  "and  as  pale  as  you  please. 
This  is  sad,  sad  indeed." 

She  looked  up  with  the  complete  self- 
possession  that  I  had  already  assigned 
to  her  as  her  special  attribute,  and  gave 
us  a  kind  of  wan  smile  that  had,  how 
ever,  its  own  tinge  of  the  informal  and 
the  familiar.  It  really  amounted  to  a 
summons  to  approach,  or  —  if  I  may  use 
another  law  term  —  to  a  piece  of  special 
pleading. 

So  I  shall  state  it,  at  least,  —  though, 
to  tell  the  truth,  her  peculiar  physiog 
nomy  complicated  the  problem  consider 
ably.  Her  prominent  cheek-bones  quite 
brought  confusion  into  any  established 
scheme  of  values  ;  and  the  singular  ob 
liquity  of  her  eyes  added  another  diffi 
culty  to  the  precise  reading  and  render 
ing  of  her  expression.  Above  all,  she 
called  for  a  background  of  her  own.  She 
was  not  the  woman  of  the  night  before, 
yet  that  cry  was  just  as  acute  and  in- 
50 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

sistent  now  as  then.  No  Sicilian  gar 
den,  no  still  and  shimmering  sea,  could 
fill  in  the  frame  ;  she  called  for  some 
thing  broader,  bleaker,  ruggeder,  than 
either  imagination  or  memory  was  able 
to  supply. 

"They  set  out  this  chair  whenever 
they  see  me  coming,"  she  said.  "I  will 
ask  them  to  bring  two  more." 

"  You  come  here  frequently,  then  ? " 
asked  Stanhope. 

"  I  have  come  here  three  or  four  times 
a  week  for  the  last  month  or  more." 

The  woman  who  had  admitted  us  ap 
peared  again  from  the  range  of  disused 
convent  offices  on  the  far  side  of  the 
church.  They  seemed  to  serve  at  once 
as  homestead,  stableyard,  storehouse,  and 
playground  for  an  abundant  progeny. 
She  held  her  baby  on  one  arm,  and  with 
the  other  she  worked  a  second  heavy 
chair  across  the  jolting  irregularities  of 
the  terrace.  She  made  some  apologetic 
remark  in  her  native  Sicilian. 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

"This  is  the  other  one,"  said  our  self- 
appointed  hostess,  interpreting,  "  the  last 
one.  There  is  no  third.  One  of  you 
must  stand." 

"I  will,"  said  Stanhope  promptly. 
"  Never  mind  me,  anyway ;  I  will  move 
about  a  bit.  There  seems  to  be  plenty 
all  around  here  to  see."  I  made  no 
doubt  of  his  willingness  to  escape  from 
such  a  milieu. 

The  woman  retired  with  her  baby, 
and  Stanhope  followed  her  to  see  the 
rarities  of  the  place. 

"  You  are  fond  of  this  spot  ? "  I  said 
to  my  companion. 

"Very,"  she  acquiesced.  "This  is  the 
part  of  Girgenti  that  wears  the  best  and 
the  longest.  And  I  have  made  friends 
with  the  people.  What  companionship  is 
there  in  all  those  cold,  empty  temples  ? " 

Not  an  archaeological  student,  evident 
ly,  nor  one  of  those  trifling  sketchers. 

"The  longest,"  —I  carried  these 
words  over  and  lingered  on  them  with  a 
52 


THE  GREATEST    OF    THESE 

marked  emphasis.     "  You  count  time  by 
the  month  here  ?  " 

"  To  me  a  month  is  a  month,  —  yes. 
There  are  others  to  whom  each  month  is 
a  year." 

I  was  not  ready  yet  to  ask  her  in  so 
many  words  what  kept  her  here  ;  that 
would  come  later.  "  And  you  are  fond 
of  poetry,  too,"  I  observed,  with  an  eye 
on  her  book. 

She  placed  the  volume  on  the  balus 
trade  of  the  terrace  :  it  was  Leopardi. 
Stanhope  himself  might  easily  have 
found  a  place  there,  had  he  but  chosen. 
Sometimes  I  think  him  overchoice,  over- 
careful.  His  very  profession  should  de 
mand,  if  not  more  tolerance,  at  least  a 
greater  catholicity  of  taste. 

She  turned  the  book  over,  so  that  it 
lay  face  downward.  "I  should  have 
brought  something  different,"  she  said 
vaguely. 

"  You  are  sad  enough  as  it  is  ?  "  I  ven 
tured. 

53 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"  This  is  not  the  world  that  it  was 
meant  to  be,"  she  returned. 

"  Things  do  go  awry,"  I  admitted. 
"  We  ourselves  are  warped,  wronged, 
twisted.  Our  natural  rights  "  — 

I  paused.  It  was  on  the  subject  of 
natural  rights  that  she  had  been  most 
vehement  the  evening  before :  the  dis 
cussion  had  involved  the  right  to  die, 
the  right  to  live,  even  the  right  to  slay. 
I  was  hoping  for  a  fuller  utterance  from 
her. 

"I  am  afraid  I  am  thinking,  not  of 
natural  rights,"  she  replied,  "but  of  un 
natural  wrongs.  I  have  been  down  into 
the  sulphur-mines  once  more." 

Was  Stanhope  right  ?  Was  she  a  po 
litical  agitator  ?  She  was  clever,  I  saw, 
and  might  be  dangerous,  I  felt  certain. 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  "  things  are  desperately 
bad  hereabouts,  I  know.  Could  it  be  in 
any  other  land  than  Italy  that  such  " 

She  glanced  at  me  with  a  new  expres 
sion.     It  was  covert,  it  was  fleeting  ;  but 
54 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

I  had  never  seen  it  before,  either  on  her 
face  or  on  another's. 

"In  my  country,"  I  went  on,  "some 
thing  would  be  done.    But  the  Italian  - 
when  it  comes  to  practical  affairs,  you 
know.       Can   you   imagine   that   we   in 
America  would  for  a  moment  allow  "  — 

"  I  am  not  sure  of  the  utility  or  of 
the  justice  of  international  comparisons," 
she  broke  in.  "There  is  always  the 
tendency  to  compare  the  foreign  reality, 
not  with  our  own  reality,  but  with  our 
own  local  ideal." 

"  But  in  your  country  ?  "  I  urged. 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment.  A 
shadow  of  that  strange  new  expression 
stole  over  her  face.  "  I  have  no  coun 
try.  Or,  better,  all  countries  are  my 
country,  now." 

I  was  to  learn  little,  I  saw.  "They 
are  the  most  wretched  of  the  wretched," 
I  said,  turning  back. 

"  I  should  be  glad  to  help  them." 

"  Can  nothing  be  done  ?  "  I  asked. 
55 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"  By  me  ?  By  one  poor  alien  woman, 
when  government,  when  the  collective 
intelligence  of  the  race,  fails  to  solve  the 
problem  ?  No,  I  have  renounced  general 
beneficence,  along  with  general  ideas. 
I  have  one  or  two  families  that  I  help," 
she  added  simply. 

This,  then,  was  her  cue  :  she  was 
turning  from  rights  to  duties.  A  more 
obtuse  observer  than  I  would  not  have 
failed  to  perceive  penitence  in  her  atti 
tude,  and  regret,  even  remorse,  in  her 
voice.  Instinctively  I  put  a  bit  of  dra 
pery  about  her,  and  made  her  the  genius 
of  Reparation,  of  Expiation. 

I  determined  not  to  allow  my  disap 
proval  of  her  to  become  too  manifest,  but 
I  had  no  idea  of  permitting  the  duties  of 
to-day  to  crowd  out  the  rights  of  yester 
day. 

"  You  give  the  poor  creatures  the  right 

to  die,"  I  suggested.     "  You  do  not  deny 

the  right  of  suicide  to  the  wretched,  the 

downtrodden,  any  more  than  to  the  in- 

56 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

delibly  disgraced,  the  hopelessly  crippled, 
the  mortally  ill,  the"- 

It  was  this  doctrine  that  had  brought 
the  curate  to  his  feet  in  protest  Do  not 
consider  me  over-insistent ;  I  am  sure 
that  I  was  but  justifiably  interested. 

"  The  mortally  ill !  "  she  sighed.  She 
looked  across  the  garden,  and  through 
the  high  flat  tufts  of  the  pines,  and  up 
the  hill  slope  beyond  ;  I  fancied  for  a 
moment  that  her  eye  rested  on  the  ter 
race  of  the  hotel.  "  They  have  only  to 
wait !  "  she  breathed  ;  "  they  have  only 
to  wait !  " 

She  half  rose,  and  as  she  settled  back 
into  her  chair  she  shook  out  the  folds  of 
her  skirt.  I  was  conscious  of  some  faint 
perfume  —  was  it  sweet,  was  it  pungent  ? 
—  that  seemed  to  emanate  from  her.  I 
instantly  figured  her  as  less  of  a  culprit 
and  more  of  a  victim,  —  though  a  victim 
to  herself,  indeed.  A  varied  catalogue 
of  drugs,  stimulants,  anodynes,  passed 
through  my  mind.  For  two  or  three 
57 


THE   GREATEST    OF    THESE 

moments  I  saw  her  own  course  of  life  as 
one  long,  slow  suicide. 

Stanhope  passed  below  us,  personally 
conducted  through  the  garden.  He 
paused  over  three  or  four  children  who 
were  engaged  in  weeding  out  a  vegetable 
bed,  and  I  saw  him  stop  for  a  moment 
before  a  donkey  tethered  to  a  medlar- 
tree.  He  took  out  his  notebook,  —  for 
the  children's  aprons  and  the  donkey's 
ears,  I  suppose :  such  details  appear  neces 
sary,  to  him. 

"  But  there  is  the  right  to  kill,"  I  in 
sisted  softly,  —  "  the  right  of  indigent 
and  overburdened  relatives  to  relieve  at 
once  the  strain  upon  themselves  and 
upon  a  hopeless  and  agonizing  victim ; 
the  right,  too,  of  a  deceived  and  outraged 
husband  to  "  — 

I  seemed  to  see  the  brown  volume  on 
the  balustrade  stamped  with  a  new  title  : 
Tue-la  ! 

It  was  this  last  right  that  she  had 
most  vigorously  denied  and  combated 
58 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

the  night  before.  The  baron  from  Ley- 
den  had  pleased  himself  by  opposing 
her ;  he  appeared  to  hold  (or  to  have 
adopted  for  the  nonce)  the  old-established 
notion  of  woman  as  property,  —  a  doc 
trine  that  struck  sparks  from  her  mind 
and  from  her  eyes  as  instantaneously  as 
a  blow  strikes  sparks  from  a  flint. 

Would  a  spark  be  struck  now  ?  Do 
not  consider  me  indiscreet;  I  am  sure 
that  I  was  but  properly  curious. 

But  no  further  spark  was  struck.  She 
looked  at  me  a  little  doubtfully,  I  thought, 
and  began  to  arrange  the  bit  of  ruching 
at  her  neck  with  one  of  those  large, 
blanched,  bony  hands.  And  I  noticed 
just  behind  her  ear  a  very  perceptible 
scar. 

"  That  is  a  literary  question,  after  all," 
she  observed  merely.  But  it  was  more 
than  a  literary  question ;  for  I  saw  in  a 
flash  a  woman  at  variance  with  her  hus 
band,  and  subject  (perhaps  justifiably)  to 
his  violence. 

59 


THE   GREATEST   OF    THESE 

I  had  another  glimpse  of  Stanhope, 
still  following  mother  and  babe  ;  he  was 
making  the  circuit  of  a  vast  tank  that 
was  half  filled  with  brown  water.  He 
slipped  along  its  broad,  smooth  stone 
borders,  and  leaned  over  its  unprotected 
edge  to  count  the  pipes  that  crossed  its 
bottom  and  that  were  brought  to  sight 
by  the  slanting  sunbeams.  I  wondered 
how  many  children  had  been  drowned 
there.  I  saw  him  make  another  entry 
in  his  notebook,  —  the  number  of  them, 
perhaps. 

"  The  right  to  live  and  to  love,  —  is 
that  a  literary  question,  too  ?  "  I  insinu 
ated  smoothly ;  "  the  right  of  those  to 
whom  fortune  never  comes,  yet  from 
whom  youth  and  spirit  are  day  by  day 
departing ;  the  right  of  her  who  has 
waited,  waited,  yet  before  whom  no 
wooer  has  ever  appeared  "  — 

I  looked  at  the  book  once  more ;  it 
now  seemed  stamped  with  still  another 
title,. —  Les  Demi-Vierges,  a  work  that 
60 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

my  companion  had  herself  cited  the  even 
ing  before. 

Do  not  consider  me  indelicate ;  I  am 
sure  that  I  was  only  —  only —  But  I 
can  trust  to  your  kind  discernment  to 
find  the  word. 

I  shall  not  say  that  she  had  expressed 
too  pointed  an  opinion  on  this  last  mat 
ter,  which  had  been  approached  but  re 
motely,  of  course,  and  indeed  very  largely 
by  implication.  Nobody  had  been  too 
definite  about  it,  except  the  saffron-eyed 
young  Croat ;  though  why  should  so  very 
young  a  man  have  entered  into  the  thing 
at  all  ? 

My  companion  moved  a  little  uneasily, 
and  her  glance,  which  had  hitherto  been 
bold  and  frank  enough  in  all  conscience, 
fell  to  the  pavement  with  something  that 
resembled  modesty,  —  an  offended  mod 
esty,  if  you  will. 

"  Whether  it  is  a  literary  question  or 
not,"   she  responded,   "it  is  a  question 
that  need  not  be  discussed  too  freely." 
61 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

She  rose,  and  reached  out  for  her  book, 
as  if  to  move  away.  Yet  I  saw  her  as 
a  woman  who  had  taken  much  more  than 
a  mere  book  or  so  into  her  own  hands. 

She  did  move  away,  but  at  the  head 
of  the  steps  she  paused.  She  gave  me 
a  perfectly  inexplicable  glance  out  of 
those  slanting  eyes  of  hers.  "  Ah,"  she 
said,  "  you  are  a  man,  —  a  young  man." 

"Yes,"  I  rejoined  very  steadily,  "I 
am  a  young  man.  And  you,"  I  hastened 
to  add,  "you  are  a  woman,  and  an  un 
happy  woman."  I  still  felt  a  large  mea 
sure  of  distaste  for  her,  but  distaste  did 
not  altogether  bar  the  way  to  pity. 

"  You  are  wrong,"  she  replied.  "  I 
am  seldom  unhappy  unless  I  stop  to 
think,  and  I  seldom  stop  to  think  unless 
I  am  idle.  I  have  been  idle,  I  acknow 
ledge." 

She  glanced   back  over  the  terrace  : 

there,  she  made  it  plain,  was  the  scene 

of  her  idleness.     I  was  not  sorry  to  have 

happened  along  and  to  have  brought  her 

62 


THE    GREATEST   OF    THESE 

idle  hour  to  an  end.  Then  she  trans 
ferred  her  glance  to  me.  Could  she  have 
meant  to  imply  that  the  time  passed  in 
conversation  with  a  clever  young  man  of 
the  world  was  simply  —  But,  no  ;  no. 

"  Yes,  you  are  young,"  she  went  on  ; 
"and  the  great  gifts  of  the  gods  are 
yours  to  enjoy,  —  strength,  youth,  free 
dom." 

Freedom  ?  Was  she  viewing  me  as  a 
bachelor  or  as  an  American  ?  No  mat 
ter  ;  I  was  equally  free  from  matrimonial 
entanglements  and  from  social  and  politi 
cal  oppression. 

We  descended  into  the  garden,  and  she 
began  to  walk  toward  the  gate  at  the  bot 
tom  of  it. 

"  I  leave  you  here,"  she  said.  "I  have 
a  key  to  the  gate;  I  shall  go  up  by  a 
shorter  path." 

"You  will  find  it  rough,  I  'm  afraid." 

"  Most  paths  are  rough."    She  paused, 
and  looked  at  me  for  the  last  time.    "  Yes, 
you  have  youth  and  freedom." 
63 


THE   GREATEST   OF   THESE 

I  declare  !  She  was  insisting  on  my 
youth  just  as  the  other  woman  had  in 
sisted  on  my  goodness.  Why  annoy 
one  so  ? 

"Youth  and  freedom,"  she  repeated. 
"  May  you  learn  to  use  the  one  before 
you  have  outgrown  the  other,"  and  she 
walked  rapidly  away. 

Of  course  I  shall  outgrow  my  youth. 
But  had  I  misused  my  freedom  ? 

Stanhope  returned,  as  I  stood  there  in 
speculation.  "  Come  with  me,"  he  said. 
"  I  have  found  off  there  an  old  Roman 
sanctuary  made  over  into  a  Norman 
chapel ;  and  I  dare  say  there  will  be 
some  good  things  to  see  in  the  church 
itself." 

He  looked  after  the  retreating  figure 
on  its  way  to  the  foot  of  the  garden. 
The  woman,  though  she  was  not  mov 
ing  slowly,  seemed  to  have  a  thoughtful, 
even  a  mournful  droop  of  the  head. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ? "  asked  Stan 
hope.     "Is  she  hurt?" 
64 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

«  Hurt  ? "  I  echoed.     "  By  what  ? " 

"  Is  she  offended  ?  " 

"Offended?     With  whom?" 

We  passed  through  some  beds  of  peas 
and  radishes  to  the  sanctuary.  It  was 
a  square  Roman  erection  to  which  an 
early  Gothic  vaulting  had  been  added. 
Through  the  broken  pavement  we  caught 
sight  of  a  burial-chamber  beneath,  with 
some  remains  of  bones. 

"  Well,"  said  Stanhope,  as  we  viewed 
together  a  few  leg-bones  and  some  thin 
broken  segments  of  human  skulls,  "  I 
suppose  you  know  now  all  that  you 
wanted  to  know;  you  have  cracked  the 
cocoanut  and  drained  the  milk.  Cer 
tainly  I  gave  you  the  opportunity, - 
almost  made  it ;  openly,  shamelessly,  it 
might  have  been  said." 

I  was  silent.  He  looked  at  me  quiz 
zically. 

"  Come,  what  is  her  country  ?     Is  she 
Finn,  Swede,  Polack,  Servian,  Icelandic, 
Montenegrin  .  .  .  ? " 
65 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

"I  —  I  don't  know,"  I  replied. 

"  Then,  what  is  she  doing  here  ? "  he 
went  on.  "  Companion,  governess,  nurse, 
courier,  student,  author,  reformer,  ex 
ile  ...  ? " 

"I  —  I  don't  think  she  said,"  I  mur 
mured. 

"Well,  then,  what  is  her  status?"  he 
proceeded.  "  Maid,  wife,  widow  .  .  .  ?  " 

"I — I  was  just  coming  to  that," 
I  responded,  "  when  —  when  she  went 
away." 

"  Well,"  observed  Stanhope,  frilling 
the  leaves  of  his  notebook,  "  I,  at  least, 
have  something  to  show  for  the  after 
noon." 

He  looked  across  over  the  back  wall 
of  the  garden  and  up  along  the  olive 
slopes  that  rose  behind.  A  black  figure, 
ascending  to  the  hotel  with  little  change 
in  bearing,  had  just  passed  in  front  of 
the  inclosing  walls  of  a  farmyard.  Then 
he  looked  back  suddenly  at  me. 

"  Yes,  I  left  you  alone  with  her,"  he 
66 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

said,  with  an  expression  not  easy  to  fa 
thom,  "  but  perhaps  I  should  have  done 
better  by  staying  there  with  you." 

IV 

We  left  Girgenti  early  the  next  morn 
ing.  I  had  no  further  converse  with  the 
sphinx  of  the  garden.  She  had  come 
down  to  dinner  the  evening  before,  as 
had  her  companion;  and  they  might 
have  sat  together  had  they  chosen,  for 
the  Dutch  baron  had  slipped  away  dur 
ing  the  afternoon.  But  they  did  not 
appear  over-desirous  of  the  public  avowal 
of  some  hidden  and  secret  tie ;  for  the 
lady  who  was  Norwegian  held  her  place 
and  kept  her  eyes  on  her  plate,  while 
the  lady  who  was  not  Norwegian  moved 
down  to  the  other  end  of  the  table  — 
and  kept  her  eyes  on  hers.  A  change 
had  come,  and  other  changes  seemed 
impending. 

We  took  our  early  coffee,  and  then 
stepped  out  on  the  terrace  for  one  final 
67 


THE    GREATEST    OF   THESE 

look  over  the  site  of  old  Agrigentum, 
"the  most  beautiful  city  of  mortals." 
The  morning  sun  touched  up  our  foun 
tain,  our  flower-pots,  and  our  box-hedges, 
and  drove  slantingly  across  the  long, 
many-windowed  front  of  the  house  itself. 

I  heard  a  slight  cough  overhead.  I 
turned,  and  saw  a  young  man  at  one  of 
the  upper  windows.  I  started  ;  I  shud 
dered.  Never  had  I  beheld  such  pallor, 
such  emaciation.  His  light,  long,  thin 
hair  fell  over  temples  absolutely  color 
less,  and  his  bright  blue  eyes  burned  and 
stared  with  an  unnatural  largeness  and 
brilliancy.  He  coughed  once  more,  and 
again ;  he  caught  at  his  breast  with  his 
slender,  bony,  bloodless  hand.  But  an 
other  hand  was  clutching  at  him,  —  the 
very  hand  of  Death. 

Presently,  at  the  window  next  be 
yond,  appeared  the  figure  of  the  little 
lady  from  the  North.  Her  own  eyes 
were  as  blue  as  his ;  her  own  face  was 
almost  as  colorless.  She  passed  and  re- 
68 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

passed  the  window  several  times,  and  I 
saw  the  various  objects  that  she  carried 
in  her  hands,  —  flasks,  brushes,  slippers, 
pieces  of  underclothing.  I  found  myself 
wondering  whether  the  two  windows  be 
longed  to  the  same  room,  and  whether 
the  window  next  beyond  lighted  the  room 
of  the  other  woman. 

The  head  waiter  came  to  tell  us  that 
the  bus  was  ready  to  leave. 

"  There  is  more  to  know  than  ever," 
I  murmured,  as  I  followed  Stanhope 
through  the  house. 

"  You  are  entitled  to  know  about 
her,  at  least,"  he  conceded.  "Ask  the 
waiter." 

"  As  if  I  would  ! "  I  returned,  with 
pride,  and  with  some  pique. 

We  were  passing  through  the  wide 
hallway  that  led  across  the  middle  of  the 
house  to  the  front. 

"  Look   at   the   register,    then.     I  Ve 
seen  a  sort  of  guest -book  lying  about 
here  somewhere,  I  believe." 
69 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"  Here  it  is,  now,"  I  rejoined,  step 
ping  toward  a  small  table.  "  Bah  !  it 's 
only  a  fortnight  old  !  " 

"  Fatality  !  "  commented  Stanhope. 
"  Have  you  got  the  sticks  and  umbrellas  ? 
Come  along,  then." 

We  left  the  problem  unsolved,  and 
joined  the  general  stream  of  travel  east 
ward.  New  types  presented  themselves 
at  new  places,  and  Girgenti  and  its  den 
izens  ceased  to  occupy  my  thoughts.  At 
Syracuse,  for  example,  we  met  an  inter 
esting  group  from  New  Orleans,  who 
added  their  Southern  accent  to  the  soft 
and  melting  tones  of  Sicily ;  and  we 
studied  the  four  officers  who  came  in 
to  dinner  every  evening  and  made  more 
noise  at  their  own  little  table  than  the 
whole  forty  tourists  did  at  their  big  one  ; 
and  we  took  a  solid  pleasure  in  the  head 
waiter,  who  looked  like  a  brigand,  if 
anybody  ever  did,  but  who  was  as  good- 
natured  and  painstaking  as  you  please. 
At  Catania  we  came  across  the  baron 
70 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

from  Leyden,  as  sepulchrally  silent  as 
ever ;  and  we  parleyed  through  one  long 
dinner  with  a  large  family  group  from 
England,  all  brothers  and  sisters,  all 
bachelors  and  spinsters,  who  were  doing 
the  island  amicably  in  a  body,  —  a  com 
pact  and  sturdy  little  English  hamlet  on 
the  move.  Perhaps  their  thatch  was 
more  or  less  out  of  repair  and  their 
chimney-pots  were  a  bit  broken  and  bat 
tered,  and  their  windows  stuffed  here 
and  there  with  wisps  of  old  straw ;  but 
they  were  one  and  all  keeping  out  wind 
and  weather  most  gallantly,  and  all 
seemed  capable  of  holding  together  for 
many  years  to  come.  At  Taormina  we 
became  rather  ecclesiastical  again.  We 
met  the  missionary  bishop  in  the  Greek 
theatre,  and  we  grazed  the  curate  and  his 
wife  in  one  of  the  Gothic  palaces.  But 
principally  we  delighted  in  our  own  Hun 
garian  prince,  a  tall,  slender,  ethereal 
person  who  submitted  to  the  crude  wines 
of  the  house  with  a  touching  patience, 


THE    GREATEST    OF   THESE 

and  who  kept  a  bald-headed  valet  busy 
half  the  day  in  brushing  trousers  on  the 
promenade  below  our  windows. 

But  we  did  not  meet  Madame  Skjel- 
derup-Brandt  and  those  two  inevitable 
daughters  ;  we  did  not  meet  the  pathetic 
little  lady  from  the  North  ;  we  did  not 
meet  the  problematical  person  from 
Everywhere  and  Nowhere ;  nor  did  we 
receive  the  slightest  sign  or  token  of 
that  hopeless  young  consumptive  upon 
whom  the  hand  of  Death  was  already 
laid. 

Nothing  occurred  to  bring  this  group 
to  mind  —  it  was  a  group,  I  felt  perfectly 
convinced  —  until  we  reached  Messina. 

The  clientele  of  the  Hotel  Trinacria, 
there,  is  largely  native  —  professional 
and  commercial  —  and  largely  masculine. 
The  guests  dine  at  two  long  tables. 
Ours  had  a  sprinkling  of  ladies ;  the 
other  was  filled  with  lawyers  and  mer 
chants,  for  a  guess ;  only  one  vacant 
seat  was  left  there.  I  sat  facing  the 
72 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

door  at  the  nearer  of  the  tables.  My 
vis-a-vis  was  a  Calabrian  marquis,  they 
told  me,  who  had  come  over  from  the 
mainland  to  spend  his  substance  in  riot 
ous  living,  and  whose  manipulation  of 
macaroni  was  riotous  enough,  in  all  con 
science.  But  never  mind  him  :  the  lady 
from  Everywhere  came  in,  passed  us  by, 
went  on  to  the  other  table,  and  took  that 
one  vacant  seat. 

She  was  her  earlier  self  once  more. 
She  wore  the  figured  black  silk  dress 
and  the  silver  bracelet.  She  made  her 
entree  with  easy  self-possession,  and  sat 
down  among  all  those  men  with  as  much 
aplomb  as  you  please.  As  she  passed  by 
she  recognized  us.  She  gave  us  a  bow 
and  a  faint,  tired  smile. 

"  She  has  forgiven  you,"  said  Stan 
hope. 

"  Forgiven  me  ?     For  what  ?  " 

"  She  is  a  noble,  generous,  broad- 
minded  creature,  I  am  sure,"  said  he. 

"  Humph  !  "  said  I. 
73 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

Though  I  could  not  keep  her  in  view, 
because  I  sat  with  my  back  to  the  other 
table,  I  was  conscious  enough  of  her 
presence  among  that  incongruous  crowd 
of  nondescripts.  "  '  Group  ! '  I  should 
think  it  was  a  group  !  " 

She  was  conversing  freely  in  Italian 
with  her  neighbors,  right  and  left.  But 
the  room  was  crowded  and  noisy,  and 
her  talk  was  difficult  to  overhear.  And 
only  by  turning  could  I  catch,  now  and 
then,  a  glimpse  of  her  face.  But  what 
I  did  see  and  hear  in  that  room  was  the 
last  of  her.  I  left  in  the  morning  for 
Naples.  I  never  met  her  again.  I  did 
not  even  think  of  her  until  months  after 
ward  in  Florence. 

We  followed  the  spring  northward. 
It  was  a  spring  of  springs  :  the  spring 
of  Sicily  in  February ;  the  spring  of  the 
Bay  of  Naples  in  March  ;  the  spring  of 
Rome  in  April ;  and  the  spring  of  the 
Val  d'  Arno  in  May,  —  the  last  of  them 
the  loveliest  and  best. 
74 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

The  heart  of  the  Florentine  spring 
discloses  itself  in  the  Cascine,  —  most 
noble  and  unaffected  of  parks,  —  with 
Monte  Morello  looming  up  big  on  one 
side,  and  the  Arno  slipping  smoothly 
past  its  poplars  on  the  other.  And  the 
heart  of  the  Cascine  is  the  wide  Piazzale, 
where  the  band  comes  to  play  just  be 
fore  sunset,  and  where  the  carabiniere  in 
blue  and  black  sits  stiff  on  his  tall  horse 
to  turn  the  tide  of  landaus  and  cabs  and 
victorias  and  four-in-hands  backward  to 
the  city.  On  one  side  of  the  Piazzale 
people  assemble  under  the  arcades  of 
the  Casino  to  eat  their  ices  and  to  gos 
sip  ;  on  the  other  side  they  sit  on  stone 
benches  round  the  big  fountain-basin  to 
listen  to  the  music  and  to  watch  the 
world  pass  by.  In  what  other  place 
does  out-of-door  society  show  itself  more 
gracious,  more  urbane  ? 

I  had  enjoyed  a  long  and  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  arcades,  so  this 
time  I  chose  the  fountain.  Upon  one 
75 


THE    GREATEST    OF   THESE 

of  the  benches,  close  by  a  bed  of  cinera 
ria,  a  lady  was  seated,  alone.  I  recog 
nized  at  once  the  grizzled  hair,  the  dark 
eyes  that  crinkled  up  in  welcome,  and 
the  chubby  little  hand  that  motioned  me 
to  take  the  place  beside  her.  It  was 
Madame  Skjelderup-Brandt. 

I  was  heartily  glad  to  see  her.  The 
intervening  months  dropped  out  in 
stantly  ;  it  was  like  the  forcing  together 
of  the  two  ends  of  an  accordion  :  Syra 
cuse,  Taormina,  Sorrento,  and  Rome  all 
issued  forth  in  a  single  tumultuous,  re 
sounding  concord,  and  nothing  was  left 
between  Girgenti  and  Florence. 

"  Well,  I  have  decided  to  go." 

This  she  said  without  one  syllable  of 
introduction. 

"  What ! "  I  cried.    "  Just  as  I  come  ?  " 

She  laughed.  "  I  mean  that  I  have 
decided  to  go  to  America.  Next  month." 

"  Good  ! "  I  cried  again.  "  They  will 
like  you." 

"  I  hope  so,"  she  responded.  "  I  want 
76 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

to  like  America,  and  I  want  America  to 
like  me.  I  am  qualifying  for  the  trip, 
you  see." 

She  gave  a  sort  of  humorous  pat  to  the 
blue  stone  slab  on  which  we  were  seated, 
and  cast  an  indulgent  smile  over  such  of 
the  middle  public  as  sat  on  other  benches 
and  surveyed  the  passing  of  the  great. 

"I  should  have  expected  to  see  you 
on  wheels,"  I  observed. 

"  I  think  I  do  as  well  here  on  this 
bench  as  I  should  in  one  of  those  odious 
cabs  with  a  big  green  umbrella  strapped 
on  behind,  and  a  bundle  of  hay  stowed 
away  under  the  driver's  legs.  Yes,  I 
am  mingling  with  the  populace  ;  I  am 
catching  the  true  spirit  of  democracy." 

"  Do  you  need  to  qualify  for  demo 
cracy  ?  Norway  itself  is  democratic. 
You  have  no  titled  nobility." 

Madame  Brandt  drew  herself  up. 
"We  have  our  old  families." 

And  I  saw  that  she  herself  belonged 
to  one  of  the  oldest  and  best  of  them. 
77 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

But  she  let  herself  down  again  almost 
immediately. 

"  My  girls  are  qualifying,  too."  She 
waved  her  hand  in  a  general  way  toward 
the  arcades  of  the  Casino,  where,  through 
the  lined-up  carriages  and  above  the 
heads  of  the  crowd  that  hemmed  in  the 
band,  we  saw  people  busy  over  their  ices 
and  syrups  at  the  little  round  iron  tables. 
"  They  have  gone  off  with  some  young 
man  or  other." 

"Poor  children!"  I  sighed.  "You 
are  putting  them  through  a  course  that  is 
fairly  heroic  ;  it  will  be  make  or  break, 
I  fear.  You  force  them  to  eat  ices  with 
strange  men  in  Florence;  you  compel 
them  to  overhear  dubious  table-talk  at 
Girgenti "  — 

Madame  Brandt  looked  at  me  with  a 
slow  seriousness  ;  then,  without  further 
preamble,  "  The  poor  young  man  died," 
she  said. 

"  Hein  ?  "  said  I. 

"  That  poor  young  consumptive  in  Si- 
78 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

cily.     He   died,  after  all.     His   mother 
has  gone  back  to  Christiania." 

"  Ah  !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  His  mother, 
to  be  sure  !  Poor  little  woman  !  " 

"  Yes,  it  was  hard  for  her,  and  for  all 
the  rest  of  us.  I  knew  what  was  coming, 
but  there  was  no  need  of  my  remaining 
longer.  There  were  others  quite  as  will 
ing  and  far  more  able." 

"There  was  one  other,  perhaps  you 
mean."  I  threw  out  this  in  a  fine  burst 
of  intuition. 

"One  other,  then.  You  didn't  like 
her,"  added  Madame  Brandt,  eying  me 
narrowly. 

"  I  never  understood  her." 

"  Yet  you  are  clever  ;  you  claim  a  good 
deal  for  yourself.  You  understood  me." 

"  Not  at  first.  Even  your  nationality 
was  a  puzzle  to  me." 

"Washers?" 

"  It  is  yet." 

"  Is  there  so  much  difference,  then, 
between  a  Norwegian  and  a  Russian  ?" 
79 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"  A  Russian  !  "  I  jumped  to  my  feet. 
"  A  Russian  !  —  I  see,  I  see  !  A  Rus 
sia^  —  a  Calmuck,  a  Cossack,  a  Tartar  ! 
Yes,  yes  ;  it  is  as  plain  as  day  !  " 

Here  was  the  key  at  last.  I  saw  the 
woman  now  in  the  right  light  and  with 
the  proper  background. 

"  I  see  !  "  I  cried  again.  "  I  under 
stand.  I  Ve  got  the  landscape  that  she 
needs.  There  is  a  big  plain  behind 
her,  one  of  those  immense  steppes,"  —  I 
threw  out  my  arms  to  indicate  the  wide 
flat  reaches  of  mid-Russia,  —  "  and  it 's 
covered  with  snow  breast-deep,  and  the 
wind  goes  raging  across  the  "  — 

Madame  Brandt  touched  my  arm. 
"  Sit  down,  please  ;  people  are  beginning 
to  notice  you." 

I  took  my  place  once  more  on  that 
cold  blue  slab.  "The  wind  goes  raging 
across  that  bare,  unbroken  stretch  ;  and 
upon  the  horizon  there  is  a  town  with 
those  bulbous  domes  on  all  its  church- 
towers  ;  and  in  the  middle  distance  there 
80 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

is  a  forlorn  wooden  village,  with  peasants 
in  boots  and  blouses,  and  their  hair  cut 
square  just  above  their  shoulders;  and 
through  the  village  there  is  a  train  of 
sledges  moving  along  on  the  way  to  Si 
beria  ;  and  there  is  a  company  of  sol 
diers  with  "  — 

"  Siberia,"  repeated  Madame  Brandt 
in  a  low,  pitying  tone.  "  You  may  well 
say  Siberia." 

"  Hein  ?  "  I  ejaculated  again. 

"The  mines,"  said  Madame  Brandt 
simply. 

"  Was  she  in  them  ?  " 

"  No,  he  was  ;  he  died  of  consumption, 
too,  poor  young  man." 

"  He  ?     Her  lover  ?  " 

"  Her  husband.  He  was  young  when 
they  took  him  away.  He  was  old  enough 
when  they  brought  him  back." 

"  Her  husband  !  "  I  had  another  burst 

of  insight.      "I  know,  I  know;  I  have 

read  their  books.     He  was  a   student, 

and  she  was  a  student,  and  they  made 

81 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

a  student  marriage.  Then  they  con 
spired  ;  they  were  apprehended ;  they 
were  put  on  trial ;  they  were  "  — 

I  was  rising  to  my  feet  once  more,  but 
Madame  Brandt  held  me  down. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  she  said.  "  He  was 
a  minor  government  official,  I  believe, 
and  she  was  a  merchant's  daughter  from 
the  far  southeast.  He  was  in  the  mines 
eight  years.  He  died  six  months  after 
his  return,  —  less  than  a  year  ago.  She 
did  everything  in  the  world  to  save  his 
life,  and  went  everywhere  in  the  world 
with  him ;  and  after  his  death  she  came 
back  to  the  South  for  rest,  change, 
study  "  — 

"  She  went  into  the  mines,  too,"  I  sug 
gested,  "at  Girgenti.  How  could  she 
bear  to  do  it  ?  " 

"  She  is  a  woman  of  rock,  of  iron," 
replied  Madame  Brandt,  "  and  she  has 
her  own  ideas  of  duty." 

Madame  Brandt  brought  out  this  last 
word    with    a    singular    emphasis,   and 
82 


THE   GREATEST   OF   THESE 

looked  me  long  and  steadily  straight  in 
the  face. 

"Duty?" 

"  Duty,  I  said,  — duty,  duty." 

"  I  understand  you,  I  think." 

"You  do  not,"  she  ejaculated  brusque 
ly.  "You  do  not,"  she  repeated,  in 
answer  to  my  look  of  protesting  sur 
prise.  "You  have  densely,  willfully 
misunderstood  all  along.  Why  do  you 
suppose  that  woman  spent  six  weeks  in 
such  a  place  as  Girgenti  ?  To  sketch 
the  ruins  ?  To  break  blossoms  from  the 
almond-trees  ?  Not  at  all ;  she  was  there 
to  help  the  young  man's  mother  keep  her 
son  alive." 

"It  was  fortunate  that  his  mother 
could  bring  so  experienced  a  nurse." 

"Bring?  Nurse?"  Madame  Brandt 
tapped  her  foot  smartly  on  the  gravel. 
"  They  met  in  Sicily  itself." 

"  It  was  fortunate,  then,  that  she  en 
countered  so  trustworthy  an  acquaint 
ance." 

83 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

"Acquaintance?"  Madame  Brandt's 
eyes  snapped,  and  she  tugged  viciously 
at  the  tips  of  her  gloves.  "  They  met 
at  Girgenti  for  the  first  time." 

"  It  was  fortunate,  then,  that "  - 

"  Understand  me,"  said  Madame 
Brandt  sharply.  "  They  were  total  stran 
gers  ;  they  were  thrown  together  by  the 
mere  chance  of  travel,  and  held  together 
by  that  noble  creature's  sympathetic 
heart  and  sense  of  duty.  Why  did  she 
look  so  pale,  so  haggard  ?  Because  she 
had  yielded  up  ungrudgingly  the  last 
traces  of  her  youthful  good  looks,  be 
cause  she  had  made  herself  live  through 
all  those  dreadful  days  once  more,  in  her 
efforts  to  spare  another  woman  the  sor 
row  that  had  been  her  own." 

I  poked  among  the  cineraria  with  my 
stick.  "  But  why  was  she  so  blunt,  so 
bold?" 

"  Why  was  /  so  blunt,  so  bold  ?  You 
were  nonplused  by  my  directness,  I  could 
see.  I  was  simply  a  person  of  age  and 
84 


THE    GREATEST    OF   THESE 

experience  welcoming  a  person  much 
younger,  —  an  habituee  giving  greeting 
to  a  stranger  just  arrived." 

"  She  was  certainly  a  woman  of  expe 
rience,"  I  conceded,  "  and  as  surely  an 
habituee." 

"  Experience  ! "  cried  Madame  Brandt 
in  a  strident  tone.  "You  have  not 
heard  the  half.  They  had  waited  too 
long  with  that  poor  boy.  At  the  last 
hour  they  hurried  him  south  as  fast  as 
they  could.  He  was  doomed.  I  saw 
it ;  she  saw  it ;  the  hotel-keepers  saw  it. 
Toward  the  end,  no  house  would  take 
him  in  for  more  than  a  night.  At  one 
place  they  were  turned  away  from  the 
very  door,  on  the  first  sight  of  the  poor 
boy's  dying  face.  She  went  with  them, 
fought  for  them,  took  charge  of  every 
thing,  —  for  the  young  man  was  almost 
past  speech,  and  his  mother  had  nothing 
but  her  own  native  Norwegian ;  until, 
at  Messina—  at  Messina  he  had  to  be 
taken  to  the  hospital.  She  went  with 
85 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

him,  nursed  him,  stayed  with  him  till  he 
died.  She  paid  his  doctors  and  attend 
ants  ;  she  saw  his  body  prepared  for  the 
return  home ;  she  herself  accompanied 
that  poor  mother  as  far  back  as  Venice. 
She  is  an  angel,  if  ever"  — 

Madame  Brandt  sat  there  rigid  on  her 
seat.  Her  lips  were  trembling,  but  her 
words  came  out  in  a  new  tone,  as  if  she 
had  set  her  throat  in  a  vise  and  did  not 
dare  to  move  it.  A  tear  had  started  in 
each  of  her  blinking  eyes,  her  nostrils 
were  inflated,  and  a  tremor  seemed  to  be 
running  through  the  arms  that  she  held 
tight  against  her  sides.  I  remembered 
two  or  three  other  women  who  had 
reached  this  same  effect  before  my  eyes, 
—  yet  never  except  under  the  influence 
of  some  strong  suppressed  indignation. 
But  what  had  Madame  Brandt  to  be  in 
dignant  about  ? 

She  turned  full  on  me,  quite  oblivious 
to  the  holiday  crowd  around. 

"  And  you,  you  doubted  her,  you  dis- 
86 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

paraged  her,  you  disrespected  her !  And 
I  —  I  let  you  ;  I  was  to  blame,  too  !  But 
you  seemed  so  clever,  so  experienced  ; 
you  claimed  to  read  character  and  to 
know  the  world.  I  thought  I  could  trust 
her  to  you ;  I  felt  that  nothing  could  as 
sail  her  "  — 

She  gave  a  gurgling  sob,  twitched  her 
handkerchief  out  of  her  pocket,  and  burst 
into  tears. 

By  this  time  we  had  attracted  the  at 
tention  of  the  crowd  most  finely.  I  tried 
as  best  I  might  to  quiet  the  poor  woman 
down;  but  I  was  none  too  successful. 
It  was  most  embarrassing. 

I  was  relieved  to  see  the  coming  of 
her  two  daughters  ;  they  cleared  the  last 
of  the  standing  carriages,  and  advanced 
slowly  across  the  intervening  stretch  of 
fine  gravel.  There  was  a  man  with 
them  :  it  was  Stanhope,  as  I  might  have 
divined.  He  came  along  with  a  new  and 
peculiar  air  ;  if  there  had  been  only  one 
girl,  I  should  certainly  have  said  that  he 
87 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

was   approaching   to  ask  the    maternal 
blessing. 

The  sight  of  Madame  Brandt  in  tears 
-  or  rather,  the  sight  of  that  handker 
chief  before  her  face  —  made  them 
quicken  their  steps.  She  did  not  lower 
her  handkerchief  to  the  solicitous  inquir 
ies  of  the  girls ;  she  rose,  pushed  them 
along  before  her,  felt  round  in  the  dark 
for  Stanhope's  hand,  which,  when  found, 
she  gripped  firmly  and  gave  a  long,  vig 
orous  shake,  and  then  she  walked  away 
and  took  the  girls  with  her.  Her  pre 
cise  form  of  adieu  to  me  —  well,  to  con 
fess  the  truth,  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I 
determined  it. 


"These  Russians,"  I  said  thoughtfully 
to  Stanhope,  as  we  passed  through  one 
of  those  avenues  of  lindens  and  beeches 
back  to  the  city. 

"  What  about  them  ?  " 

"  They  are  a  study,  —  a  study.  For 
88 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

example,  there  was  the  young  fellow  we 
met  last  summer  in  Bedford  Place  :  he  had 
come  over  to  London  to  learn  English." 

"  I  remember,"  said  Stanhope.  "  He 
was  so  nai'f,  so  good-natured,  so  uncouth, 
so  confiding,  so  disposed  to  assume  a 
general  friendliness  on  all  sides,  like  a 
big  Newfoundland  puppy.  He  had  the 
sweetest  smile  I  ever  saw,  and  the  most 
appealing  eyes.  He  was  as  frank  and 
simple  and  direct  as  one  of  the  frankest 
and  simplest  and  most  direct  of  our  own 
people  could  have  been ;  and  yet  there 
was  something  more,  something  be 
yond  "  — 

"  Yes,  there  was  something  beyond ; 
we  did  n't  get  it." 

"And  there  was  the  Russian  prince 
who  —  Have  you  been  meeting  any 
Russians  to-day  ?"  he  asked  suddenly. 

"  No,  not  to-day." 

—  "  the  Russian  prince  who  was  lec 
turing  at  Geneva  on  his  country's  his 
tory  and  literature.  He  was  as  brilliant 
89 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

and  polished  as  a  Frenchman,  as  sympa 
thetic  and  informal  as  an  American  ;  but 
behind  all  that  "  — 

"  Behind  all  that  there  was  the  '  some 
thing  more '  ?  " 

"Yes.  I  didn't  pay  the  best  atten 
tion  to  his  lecture,  perhaps  ;  but  he  him 
self  gave  me  the  man-to-man  feeling  as 
no  man  ever  did  before." 

"  And  there  was  the  Russian  lady," 
I  went  on,  "  whom  we  met  last  month 
in  Rome  at  the  Farnesina.  I  took  her 
for  an  American  at  first,  —  she  was  so 
alert,  so  competent,  so  enthusiastic,  so 
unconscious  of  self  ;  but "  — 

"  The  *  something  more/  again  ?  I 
know  what  it  was  in  this  case,  at  least ; 
it  was  earnestness  and  solidity  of  tem 
perament.  Although  she  had  the  showy 
surface  of  a  woman  in  society,  her  tex 
ture  was  altogether  without  the  sleazy, 
flimsy  "  — 

"Take  care,"  said  I,  dabbing  at  the 
shrubbery  with  my  stick.  "  There  may 
90 


THE    GREATEST    OF    THESE 

be  some  Americans  passing  along  be 
hind  this  hedge." 

"  Let  them  pass,"  he  said  ;  "  there  are 
other  temperaments  that  I  find  more  ad 
mirable  than  theirs." 

"And  there  was  even  the  pension- 
keeper  we  met  day  before  yesterday," 
I  went  on,  "  in  the  Via  Landino ;  what 
was  that  wonderful  consonantal  spree  on 
her  door-plate  ?  You  remember  her  ?  — 
that  great,  broad,  pink-and-white  human 
cliff  ;  and  with  what  a  cosmic  stare  her 
old  blue  eyes  blazed  upon  us  from  under 
those  straight  yellow  brows  !  An  inter 
view  of  two  minutes,  —  she  had  no  quar 
ters  for  us,  — but  one  of  a  striking  inti 
macy  and  directness.  She  dismissed  us 
with  a  sort  of  gruff,  brusque  kindness  ; 
but  for  that  two  minutes  there  seemed 
to  be  nothing  between  us,  —  she  almost 
abolished  the  atmosphere  !  " 

"The  Russians,  yes,"  said  Stanhope. 
"  The  breadth  of  life  is  theirs,  and  the 
belief  in  themselves,  and  all  clearness 


THE    GREATEST   OF   THESE 

of  vision.  They  face  the  great  realities, 
and  see  them  for  what  they  are  ;  they 
come  up  close  to  us  and  blow  the  fresh 
young  breath  of  the  near  future  into  our 
faces.  We  Americans  are  young,  too ; 
and  our  own  youth  responds  to  theirs  — 
or  should." 

"  '  Or  should/  "  For  he  seemed  to  be 
offering  me  the  choice  between  confess 
ing  myself  unresponsive  or  confessing 
myself  unsophisticated.  "  We  ought  to 
visit  them  at  home,"  I  added. 

"  So  we  ought." 

"  Will  you  go  there  with  me  this  com 
ing  summer  ? " 

"  I  am  going  the  other  way." 

"To  America?"  I  inquired. 

"  To  America ;  with  Madame  Brandt 
and  her —  her  party." 

"  I  understand  she  has  a  fondness  for 
America." 

"  America  will  develop  a  fondness  for 
her." 

I  snatched  a  branch  of  laurel  from  the 
92 


THE    GREATEST    OF   THESE 

hedge,  and  stripped  its  leaves  off  one  by 
one  as  we  moved  on. 

"H'm,"  said  I;  "I  hope  so,  I  am 
sure.  She  is  something  of  a  character 
in  her  way ;  and  character  is  the  first  of 
things,  —  except,  you  understand,  the 
penetrative  portrayal  of  it." 
93 


WHAT  YOUTH   CAN   DO 


You  might  have  knocked  us  down 
with  a  feather.  One  very  small  feather 
would  have  done  for  us  both. 

And  yet  we  are  not  persons  to  be  sur 
prised  easily,  my  husband  and  I. 

In  fact,  we  had  about  reached  the 
stage  where  we  were  beginning  to  feel 
that  our  capacity  for  surprise  was  as  good 
as  exhausted.  For  we  have  traveled  in 
our  time,  understand.  We  have  spent 
the  better  part  of  our  days  in  a  constant 
moving  from  place  to  place  ;  we  have 
contrived  to  see  nearly  all  that  is  really 
worth  seeing ;  we  have  taken  a  good 
many  ditches  and  hedges,  and  have  man 
aged  to  be  in  at  more  than  one  death. 
"  Poking  about "  —  as  that  young  Ameri- 
94 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

can  at  Venice  whimsically  expressed  it 

—  has  come  to  be  our  second  nature  ;  I 
suppose  we  shall  keep   up   our  poking 
about  as  long  as  we  last. 

How  it  came  that  we  never  had  poked 
our  way  into  Monte  Citorio  until  the  day 
before  yesterday  is  more  than  I  can  ex 
plain.  For  we  have  been  in  Rome  half 
a  dozen  times  or  so  —  we  even  passed  a 
whole  winter  here  a  few  years  ago.  But 
I  was  forty  before  I  ever  went  to  the 
Crystal  Palace  ;  while  as  for  the  Tower 

—  well,  I  have  n't  been  there  yet. 

We  drifted  into  Monte  Citorio  quite 
by  accident  —  though  we  may  have  had 
some  slight  curiosity  to  see  how  far  our 
own  parliamentary  forms  had  been  mas 
tered  by  the  Latin  races.  They  have  the 
forms,  apparently  —  with  a  difference. 
How  much  there  may  be  behind  the 
forms  —  well,  Ethelbert  has  his  doubts 
on  that  score. 

He  spoke  —  the  man  who  was  to  show 
us  what  youth  could  do,  the  man  who 
95 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

was  to  demonstrate  what  might  be  ac 
complished  by  playing  the  game  with  a 
complete  mastery  of  the  pieces  actually 
on  the  board.  If  that  other  youth  could 
but  have  been  there  !  —  the  American, 
I  mean  ;  for  he  was  clever  enough  to 
appreciate  cleverness.  His  name  —  let 
me  think ;  I  shall  have  it  in  a  moment. 
Oh,  yes  ;  it  was  Stanhope  —  not  the 
least  bit  American,  eh  ?  One  would 
have  expected  it  to  be  Dwiggins,  or 
McDurkle,  or  something  of  that  sort. 
Still,  his  name  suited  him  well  enough 
—  he  was  quite  the  gentleman.  How 
ever,  he  would  sprawl,  and  never  worse 
than  when  we  took  him  with  us  out  on 
the  water.  He  would  sit  over  to  one 
side,  and  let  those  long  legs  of  his  fall 
wherever  might  happen.  Then  he  would 
dabble  his  hand  over  the  edge  of  the 
gondola,  and  waggle  his  head  at  the  pal 
aces  as  we  moved  along,  and  bring  the 
whole  scheme  of  European  civilization 
to  the  judgment-bar.  The  old  world,  he 
96 


WHAT    YOUTH   CAN    DO 

thought,  gave  no  chance  to  youth,  to 
merit,  to  cleverness  ;  humble  talent  was 
allowed  no  opportunity  to  rise.  Had  he 
but  gone  with  us  to  the  session  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  at  Monte  Citorio  ! 
And  Elizabeth  Harkins,  that  plain, 
dull  girl,  —  plain  and  dull  even  for 
Birmingham,  —  the  girl  we  would  now 
and  then  take  to  Burano  or  to  the  Lido 
out  of  sheer  pity ;  — to  think  that  I 
should  have  lived  to  see  her  charioteer 
ing  through  the  Corso  as  a  princess  ! 
In  the  face  of  such  facts  as  these  what 
can  the  minor  gentry  do  ?  They  can 
but  lament  the  power  of  gold  and  take  a 
firmer  clutch  on  the  arms  of  their  ances 
tral  chairs. 

I  think  of  him  and  I  think  of  her,  and 
ask  myself  what  situation  could  be  more 
bizarre.  But  one  :  suppose  he  had  been 
her  servant  instead  of  the  Duchess's  ! 

The  Duchess  — but  I  shall  reach  all 
that  in  good  time. 

We  arrived  at  the  Chamber  near  the 
97 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

close  of  the  session.  We  were  hardly  in 
our  seats  before  a  new  speaker  entered 
the  tribune.  He  was  a  young  man 
scarcely  over  thirty.  A  handsomer  face 
and  figure,  a  more  distinguished  and  self- 
assured  bearing,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  conceive.  And  as  for  fluency  of  ut 
terance  and  ready  grace  of  gesture  — 
but  those  are  gifts  common  to  all  Ital 
ians.  I  was  immensely  impressed,  and 
at  once.  So  was  Ethelbert,  as  I  could 
see ;  though  his  attitude  toward  youth 
and  toward  the  grace,  ardor,  and  impetus 
of  youth  is  not  of  the  most  sympathetic. 
Possibly  he  draws  comparisons  and  feels 
himself  at  a  disadvantage.  Sometimes 
I  draw  them  too  —  in  a  reasonable  spirit 
of  charity.  I  did  so  on  this  occasion 
—  tempering  my  admiration  with  the 
thought  that  Ethelbert  had  always  been 
a  good  husband,  and  my  ardor  with  the 
thought  that  I  was  going  on  fifty-eight. 
But  as  regards  mere  age,  I  might  have 
gone  further  and  still  kept  within  bounds ; 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

for  the  Duchess  herself  was  going  on 
sixty-three. 

Now,  I  am  intending  to  be  perfectly 
frank.  To  me,  then,  there  has  always 
been  something  delightfully  sinister  (if 
I  may  put  it  that  way)  in  one  of  those 
clear  olive  complexions,  especially  when 
a  dark  young  beard  seems  to  be  doing 
its  best  to  break  through  the  bounds 
set  by  a  vigilant  barber  —  who,  however, 
will  hear  of  nothing  more  than  a  trim 
little  black  mustache  swirling  airily  be 
neath  a  pair  of  delicate  and  disdainful 
nostrils.  (I  do  not  mean  to  represent 
that  there  is  anything  in  the  facial  aspect 
of  my  Ethelbert  to  jog  the  imagination  ; 
his  complexion  —  even  as  it  addresses 
the  eye  of  affection  — is  but  a  motley 
massing  of  reds  and  yellows,  and  his  nose 
is  a  plain,  every-day  organ  that  serves 
well  enough  for  smelling,  but  that  would 
hardly  appeal  to  the  chisel  of  the  sculptor. 
And  those  dear  old  blue  eyes  of  his  - 
no,  there  is  nothing  that  is  aesthetically 
99 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

striking  about  my  Ethelbert,  and  I  am 
glad  enough  of  it.)  And  I  will  say  that 
I  enjoy  a  round  white  neck  that  rises 
column-like  from  a  deep  chest  and  a  pair 
of  well-squared  shoulders  —  a  combina 
tion  as  common  here  as  it  is  rare  among 
ourselves.  (Still,  I  would  not  have  my 
husband  changed.  His  sloping  shoulders 
and  his  long,  craning  neck  will  serve  in 
the  future  as  they  have  served  in  the 
past ;  and  those  thin,  scraggly,  reddish- 
gray  curls  that  assemble  behind  his  ears 
I  would  be  the  last  to  replace  by  dark, 
dense,  crisp  locks  waving  on  the  proud 
forehead  of  any  youthful  and  fiery  orator 
that  you  may  bring  forward.)  And  I 
will  add,  without  any  false  delicacy,  — 
else  why  be  fifty-seven,  or  why  keep  in 
mind  the  precedent  established  by  the 
Duchess  ?  —  that  I  view  with  pleasure  a 
youth  whose  lithe  and  graceful  body  is 
arrayed  with  correctness  and  elegance  in 
an  exquisite  frock  coat,  the  triumph  of 
the  first  of  tailors  ;  for  Ethelbert  —  and 

100 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

I  say  it  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger  — 
is  but  too  likely  to  put  on  whatever  may 
hang  upon  the  nearest  hook.  In  other 
words,  though  I  am  an  old  body  of  fifty- 
seven  and  as  good  and  faithful  a  wife 
as  I  know  how  to  be,  I  delight  in  youth, 
in  comeliness,  in  elegance,  in  cleverness, 
in  spirit,  in  eloquence  —  I  do,  I  do,  I  do  ; 
and  all  these  combined  —  and  more  — 
stood  there  in  the  tribune  before  me. 
Ah,  poor  dear  old  Duchess ! — comprendre, 
c'est  pardonner. 

I  found  myself  leaning  over  the  edge 
of  the  balcony  —  I  dare  say  my  interest 
and  my  admiration  were  obvious  enough. 
Ah,  that  young  man  !  —  how  imperious 
his  manner,  how  scornful  the  lilt  of  his 
head,  the  droop  of  his  eyelid,  how  fluent 
his  utterance,  how  confident  and  master 
ful  his  gesture  !  "  Ask  some  one  who 
he  is,  and  what  he  is  talking  about,"  I 
whispered  to  my  husband. 

"  Sit  up,  Sophronia,"  he  returned, 
looking  at  me  out  of  the  corner  of  his 
101 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

eye.  "  I  know  already  what  he  is  talk 
ing  about,"  he  added  shortly. 

I  am  always  forgetting  that  Ethelbert 
is  proud  of  his  knowledge  of  the  Con 
tinental  languages.  I  myself  can  read 
Italian,  but  I  am  far  from  able  to  deal 
with  the  free  flow  of  forensic  oratory. 

"  Is  it  about  the  vines  ? "  I  asked. 
"  Is  it  about  drainage  ?  Is  he  trying  to 
get  a  railway  run  through  his  province  ? 
Or  perhaps  it  's  naval  estimates,"  I 
added,  with  conciliatory  intent.  When 
Ethelbert  was  in  the  Commons  the  naval 
estimates  were  always  on  his  mind. 

"  It  is  a  question  of  state,"  he  replied 
laconically. 

Not  often  is  Ethelbert  so  vaguely 
grandiloquent.  "A  question  of  state," 
thought  I ;  "so  much  the  better  —  that 's 
just  what  it  ought  to  be.  Nothing  less 
would  have  met  my  ideal."  And  then 
I  did  sit  up,  almost  satisfied  —  for  the 
nonce. 

The    debate   went    on.     There   were 

102 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

cheers  for  my  speaker,  and  there  were 
interruptions  from  the  opposition.  But 
there  was  no  wandering  of  thoughts  or 
of  eyes  on  anybody's  part ;  the  Cham 
ber  was  crowded,  and  he  enjoyed  the  un 
divided  attention  of  everybody  present. 
Now  and  then  an  ironical  laugh  would 
ring  out,  and  I  saw  more  than  one  face 
wearing  a  satirical  smile.  But  my  young 
man  had  his  hand  upon  the  house  and 
held  it  there.  He  repaid  scorn  with 
scorn ;  with  a  beautiful  movement  of 
throat  and  torso  he  would  acknowledge 
the  encouragement  of  his  own  support 
ers,  and  he  had  an  easy  and  supple  turn 
of  the  wrist  to  avert  the  impertinences 
of  the  other  side.  Everything  marked 
him  for  a  man  who  was  going  to  have 
his  own  way. 

At  last,  "  I  must  know  his  name ! " 
I  panted.  "  Ask  somebody,"  I  urged 
my  husband.  "  That  old  gentleman  be 
side  you  looks  as  if  he  might  be  able  to 
tell  you." 

103 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

Ethelbert  turned  to  his  nearest  neigh 
bor,  a  stout,  bald-headed  little  old  fellow 
who  was  viewing  the  scene  with  a  smile 
of  cynical  enjoyment.  He  answered  our 
inquiry  with  a  slight  curl  of  his  lip  and 
a  dilating  nostril.  I  conceived  a  dislike 
for  him  at  once. 

"The  speaker  is  the  Prince  of  Cras- 
segno,"  he  said. 

I  had  never  heard  the  title  before. 
"  Ask  him  what  province,  what  city,"  I 
persisted. 

"  The  prince  is  Venetian,"  responded 
the  old  gentleman,  lifting  his  eyebrows 
a  trifle. 

"He  sits  for  the  city  of  Venice?" 
asked  Ethelbert. 

"  Ah,  no.     But  he  is  Venetian." 

"  He  is  young  for  his  position,"  I  sug 
gested,  looking  across  the  tip  of  Ethel- 
bert's  nose. 

The  little  gentleman  gave  his  shoul 
ders  an  indescribable  shrug.  "  Young, 
yes.  But  the  Duchess  of  Dogliano  was 
104 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

older.     And  the  Prince  of  Crassegno  was 
older  still." 

"  The  Duchess  of  Dogliano ! "  I 
gasped. 

"  His  —  patron,"  responded  the  old 
gentleman  politely. 

"  And  the  Prince  of  Crassegno  ? "  sug 
gested  Ethelbert,  copying  the  other's 
emphasis. 

I  heeded  not  the  reply— if  there  was 
one.     Enough  was  enough,  for  the  time 
being.     I  fixed  my  eye  firmly  upon  the 
young  orator  in  the  tribune.     I  recog 
nized   him.     The  set   of   his  head,  the 
beautiful  outline  of  his  nose  and  chin, 
the  lithe  grace  of  neck  and  waist  and 
limb,  the  very  tones  of  his  voice  —  how 
often  had  I  seen  them,  heard  them,  upon 
the  water-steps  of  the  Duchess's  own  pal 
ace,  or  from  the  poop  of  her  gondola  as 
he  dexterously  guided  the  craft  through 
the  emblazoned  piles  that  hedged  in  her 
doorway  !     And  now  he  was  here  —  he 
was  risen  to  this  ! 

105 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

The  session  soon  broke  up.  We  flocked 
down  and  out  with  the  crowd.  Before 
the  door  stood  a  number  of  handsome 
carriages  with  coachmen  and  footmen 
in  handsome  liveries.  In  the  stateliest 
of  these  equipages  a  lady  sat  waiting 
alone.  It  was  Elizabeth  Harkins  —  her, 
at  least,  I  recognized  in  a  moment, 
though  I  had  not  seen  her  for  three 
good  years.  She  looked  well  and  happy, 
and  really  not  so  plain  as  I  had  remem 
bered  her.  The  trappings  of  social  state 
surrounded  her  ;  the  stamp  of  success 
seemed  impressed  upon  her.  Such  things 
do  make  a  difference.  We  bowed  to 
her,  much  wondering.  She  returned 
our  salutation  with  a  gracious  gravity  — 
too  plainly  she  was  no  longer  the  Eliza 
beth  of  Venetian  days.  All  the  same, 
though,  we  might  have  advanced  toward 
her  with  a  word  of  greeting,  but  that  a 
gentleman,  issuing  from  the  great  door 
way  of  Monte  Citorio,  stepped  quickly 
up  to  the  carriage,  jumped  in  lightly, 
1 06 


WHAT   YOUTH   CAN    DO 

and  ordered  the  coachman  ahead.  I 
looked  after  him  as  the  carriage  crossed 
the  Piazza  Colonna  to  turn  into  the  Corso. 
He  was  my  orator  —  none  other. 

Ethelbert  stood  there,  helpless,  dum- 
founded.  Not  so  I.  "  This  is  too  much  !" 
I  exclaimed  ;  "  let  me  learn  the  truth  — 
I  must,  I  must  ! "  I  turned  back  to  the 
door  for  authentic  official  information ; 
the  beadle  who  stood  there  under  the 
archway  seemed,  by  virtue  of  his  cocked 
hat  and  his  brass-knobbed  staff,  the  per 
son  to  give  it. 

"  Who  are  they  ?  "  I  cried  to  him,  as 
the  carriage  rounded  the  big  column  in 
the  middle  of  the  square  and  careered 
on  toward  the  cafft  tables  set  out  on  the 
corner. 

The  man  looked  at  me  in  astonishment 
—  even  indignation.  If  I  had  been  a 
single  shade  less  exigent,  less  vehement, 
I  am  sure  he  would  have  turned  his  back 
upon  me  and  walked  off  without  a  word. 

He  caught  me  out  of  the  way  of  a  pair 
107 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN   DO 

of  trampling  steeds  —  that  may  have 
served  my  cause  too  —  and  said  simply  : 

"Their  excellencies  the  prince  and 
princess  of  Crassegno." 

"  The  prince  and  princess  of  Cras 
segno  !  "  I  echoed  feebly,  as  Ethelbert, 
recovering  himself,  took  me  by  the  arm 
and  led  me  to  a  cab.  "  The  prince  and 
princess  of  Crassegno."  Yet  the  prin 
cess  of  Crassegno  was  Elizabeth  Har- 
kins,  whose  people  made  bolts  and  pad 
locks  in  Birmingham,  and  the  prince  of 
Crassegno  was  the  Piero  whom  time  and 
time  again  I  had  seen  punting  a  scowful 
of  firewood  up  a  back  canal  to  the  rear 
door  of  the  palace  of  the  Duchess  of 
Dogliano ! 

ii 

Yes,  you  might  have  knocked  us  both 
down  with  a  feather. 

The  world   of  to-day  —  it   confounds 
me  utterly  !   But  let  me  compose  myself  ; 
there  is  a  good  deal  for  me  to  explain. 
108 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

I  will  begin  with  the  Duchess  —  she 
seems  to  have  been  the  fountain-head  of 
the  whole  stream  of  events. 

There  is  no  doubt  that,  in  her  day,  the 
Duchess  was  a  competent  and  energetic 
woman  in  the  management  of  her  affairs  ; 
the  only  trouble  is  that  she  was  allowed 
to  manage  them  too  long.  She  drifted 
into  her  dotage  so  gradually  that  nobody 
knew  just  when  to  draw  a  line  and  to 
put  those  affairs  into  other  hands.  It 
was  during  this  debatable  interval  be 
tween  competence  and  incompetence 
that  the  damage  was  done.  However, 
there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  on  her 
behalf.  She  had  been  a  widow  for  twenty 
years  ;  she  had  no  children  of  her  own 
—  nor  had  she  any  reason  for  taking  very 
kindly  to  those  turbulent  nephews  of 
hers ;  and  the  magnificent  vacuity  of 
Palazzo  Dogliano  came  after  a  while  to 
be  more  than  the  poor  lonely  old  crea 
ture  could  stand.  Then  Piero  happened 

along. 

109 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

Piero  arrived  one  October  afternoon 
on  a  scow  —  as  our  young  American 
friend  called  it.  He  brought  a  load  of 
brushwood  and  fagots  across  the  lagoon 
from  one  of  the  Duchess's  estates  on 
the  mainland.  I  saw  him  arrive  —  I  wit 
nessed  his  debut.  We  were  on  rather 
intimate  terms  with  the  Duchess,  and 
little  went  on  that  we  did  not  observe. 
Between  her  and  us  there  was  only  a 
narrow  little  calle  and  the  stub-end,  if  I 
may  say  so,  of  a  canal ;  smells  from  her 
kitchen  were  always  finding  their  way 
into  our  dining-room,  and  the  windows 
of  our  salotto  commanded  everybody  and 
everything  that  passed  in  and  out  of  her 
big  water-gate.  And  when  Piero  finally 
came  to  take  up  his  quarters  in  the  pal 
ace  itself  —  but  I  am  going  faster  than 
I  should. 

Piero   was   between    twenty-five    and 

twenty-six.     His  physical  perfections,  as 

he  came  along  with  his  boatload  of  brush- 

wood,  were  just  as  manifest  as  when  I 

no 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

saw  him  in  the  Chamber  last  Tuesday ; 
and  his  mental  qualities  were  doubtless 
equally  present  in  full  potentiality.  His 
bearing  was  already  a  compound  of  self- 
possession  and  disdain,  and  he  conducted 
himself  even  then  with  a  gravity  and 
discretion  that  made  him  a  marked  man 
among  his  kind.  A  wretched  yellow  dog 
was  yelping  contentiously  at  the  fore  of 
the  boat  as  Piero  first  swam  into  our 
ken  ;  when  he  noticed  us  looking  down 
he  silenced  the  cur  as  if  its  yelping  were 
a  reflection  on  his  own  dignity. 

Piero  crossed  the  lagoon  a  number  of 
times  with  his  loads  of  brushwood,  and 
I  thought  more  than  once  that  his  skill 
in  handling  that  clumsy  old  craft  of  his 
was  great  enough  to  entitle  him  to  an 
opportunity  in  a  higher  field.  Presently 
such  an  opportunity  was  bestowed  upon 
him.  One  morning  the  big  door  of  the 
palace  opened,  and  we  saw  the  Duchess 
standing  on  her  cracked  old  marble  steps 
and  blinking  her  dim  old  eyes  in  the 
in 


WHAT   YOUTH   CAN    DO 

morning  sun  as  its  beams  struck  up  from 
the  glassy  surface  of  the  Canalazzo.  Im 
mediately  her  gondola  came  grazing  along 
one  of  her  tall  gold-and-purple  pali,  but 
the  gondolier  in  charge  was  no  longer 
the  seasoned  and  faithful  old  Antonio, 
who  had  served  her  so  many  years.  No  ; 
in  his  stead  stood  a  lithe  and  graceful 
youth  in  blue  serge ;  he  had  a  deep  blue 
ribbon  fluttering  on  his  wide  straw  hat, 
and  a  Roman  sash  barred  in  red  and 
orange  and  violet  bound  round  his  waist, 
and  a  sailor  shirt  cut  lower  in  the  neck 
than  I,  as  a  modest  but  uncompromising 
Christian,  found  it  possible  completely 
to  approve.  With  an  easy  but  deter 
mined  self-assertion  he  laid  down  his  oar, 
brushed  aside  a  pair  of  officious  and  en 
cumbering  maids,  and  helped  the  old 
lady  into  her  boat  with  incomparable 
grace  and  deference.  If  Ethelbert  had 
ever  put  me  into  a  carriage  with  half  the 
tactful  gallantry  of  Piero  —  it  was  Piero, 
of  course  —  putting  the  Duchess  into 
112 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

her  gondola,  I  should  have  died  of  pride 
and  pleasure.  But  I  am  alive  yet,  and 
expect  to  stay  so  for  many  years  to  come. 
After  this  the  Duchess  lived  on  the 
water  and  kept  Piero  in  his  summer  tog 
gery  (another  word  of  young  Stanhope's) 
as  long  as  she  possibly  could  —  a  little 
longer,  that  is,  than  was  fit  or  sensible. 
For  the  past  year  she  had  not  gone  out 
upon  the  water  oftener  than  once  or 
twice  a  month  ;  now  she  went  out  almost 
every  day.  She  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  rising  at  noon  ;  now  she  began  to 
start  out  on  her  excursions  at  eleven,  or 
even  at  ten  —  one  morning  they  brought 
her  down  with  her  hamper  and  her  wine 
bottles  at  half-past  nine.  Piero  simply 
took  charge  of  her  —  he  imposed  him 
self  upon  her.  He  was  kind,  but  firm  ; 
he  was  devoted,  but  never  in  the  least 
degree  servile ;  he  directed  her,  he  com 
manded  her,  and  I  imagine  there  were 
times  when  he  even  hectored  her  —  dis 
creetly,  of  course.  I  believe  this  was 
113 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN   DO 

just  what  she  wanted  —  just  what  she 
required.  Her  poor  wandering  wits  were 
beginning  to  need  some  prop,  and  her 
poor  old  wandering  legs  were  doubtless 
better  in  a  gondola  than  they  could  have 
been  anywhere  else.  Every  morning 
she  came  doddering  down  —  and  she 
doddered  delightfully,  just  as  a  real  duch 
ess  should.  But,  alas  !  she  simpered  too, 
and  her  simpering  was  that  of  the  ver 
iest  school -girl.  Piero  would  respond 
to  these  simperings  with  an  indulgent 
smile,  and  then  settle  her  among  her 
cushions,  and  lay  hold  on  his  oar,  and 
throw  up  his  beautiful  head,  and  bend 
his  strong  back,  and  turn  his  supple 
wrist,  and  start  her  off  for  a  day  at  Tor- 
cello,  or  along  the  Brenta,  or  heaven 
knows  where. 

At  last  the  poor  old  soul  had  found  an 
interest  in  life. 

We  would  encounter  them  now  and 
then  in  different  parts  of  the  lagoon. 
We  went  out  a  good  deal  ourselves,  and 
114 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

once  in  a  while  we  would  ask  that  poor 
Elizabeth  Harkins  to  go  with  us.  She 
had  nobody  but  an  aunt,  who  knew  lit 
tle  enough  what  to  do  for  her  or  how  to 
do  it.  Sometimes  that  young  Stanhope 
would  go  with  us  too,  and  as  often  as 
decency  permitted  we  would  invite  one 
from  among  the  native  youth  who  were 
always  dangling  after  Elizabeth  with  in 
tentions  more  or  less  clearly  defined. 
There  were  two  or  three  minor  titles 
among  them — some  of  them  were  counts 
and  the  like;  and  there  were  others 
more  or  less  remotely  connected  with 
noble  houses  —  they  could  put  coronets 
on  their  cards.  Some  of  them  were  in 
the  army ;  one  was  a  lieutenant,  I  re 
member,  and  another  a  captain.  They 
all  tried  to  show  a  proper  interest  in  the 
Birmingham  heiress  and  a  not  improper 
interest  in  the  Birmingham  millions. 
Stanhope  would  quiz  them  to  their  very 
faces,  until  I  told  him  it  would  n't  do. 
One  afternoon  we  passed  the  Duchess 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

and  her  Piero  near  San  Lazzaro.  We 
had  the  Duchess's  two  nephews  with  us. 
They  were  dangling  also  —  but  not  over- 
seriously,  for  their  expectations  from 
their  aunt  were  such  that  they  felt  no 
real  need  of  paying  court  to  a  foreign 
heiress.  In  fact,  their  ideals,  as  I  hap 
pened  to  know,  were  very  definite  indeed, 
and  they  were  under  no  necessity  of  go 
ing  abroad  to  realize  them.  We  passed 
within  a  few  yards  of  the  other  craft, 
and  I  must  say  that  the  two  young  men 
took  the  languishing  satisfaction  of  their 
aunt  in  very  good  part.  Not  in  the  least 
did  they  appear  to  disapprove  of  the 
firm,  alert,  decorous,  determined  atten 
tions  paid  their  elderly  relative  by  her 
new  attendant.  They  rather  laughed, 
indeed,  and  seemed  glad  to  feel  that  the 
old  soul  was  so  easy  in  her  mind.  The 
time,  however,  was  not  far  distant  when 
they  were  to  be  none  too  easy  in  their 
own  minds.  That  was  the  time,  too, 
when  the  Birmingham  millions  came  to 
116 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN   DO 

seem  worthy  of  more  serious  considera 
tion,  and  when  the  slightest  movement 
of  the  worthy  Piero  gave  them  the  deep 
est  concern  —  not  to  say  alarm. 

The  autumn  went  on.  Nobody  was 
especially  keen  about  Elizabeth  Harkins, 
and  Giorgio  and  Teodoro  appeared  to 
assume  the  propriety  and  inflexibility  of 
their  aunt's  ultimate  intentions  toward 
them.  Piero  kept  up  his  ornate,  perse 
vering,  ingratiating  ministrations,  and 
carried  himself  with  an  unfailing  tact, 
dignity,  and  discretion.  He  used  all 
these  qualities  in  bestowing  his  acquaint 
ance  upon  us  (this  came  about  only  a  few 
weeks  before  we  took  our  departure  for 
a  winter  in  Naples),  and  he  almost  made 
it  seem  as  if  he  were  doing  us  a  favor. 
I  must  say  that  his  manners  were  perfect. 
He  never  quarreled  noisily  with  other 
gondoliers ;  he  never  made  pert  com 
ments  on  passing  tourists.  Little  did  I 
appreciate  such  forbearance  —  until  the 
time  of  our  departure  from  the  place  ! 
117 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

The  Venetian  tourist  headed  for  the  ho 
tels  on  the  Canalazzo  is  one  person  ;  the 
Venetian  tourist  headed  for  the  railway 
station  is  another.  For  the  arriving 
guest,  deference ;  for  the  parting  guest, 
such  caustic  comment,  such  pert  and  airy 
insolence,  as  you  could  scarce  imagine. 
Ah,  the  remarks  passed  upon  our  per 
sons,  our  clothes,  our  luggage,  our  char 
acters,  during  that  half  hour  to  the  sta 
tion  !  Ethelbert  would  not  give  me  the 
substance  of  these  comments  except  in 
softened  paraphrase.  Even  on  those 
terms,  I  was  almost  speechless  with  in 
dignation —  think  of  my  being  called  a 
frump,  and  worse  (that 's  what  it  came  to, 
and  I  understood  it,  despite  my  husband's 
care) ;  while  Ethelbert  himself  (one  pass 
ing  boatman  asked  our  own  man  to  what 
menagerie  he  was  taking  that  giraffe) 
reached  the  landing-stage  in  a  disposi 
tion  to  seize  the  first  convenient  weapon 
and  resort  to  the  extreme  of  physical 
violence. 

118 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

"  We  will  never  come  back  to  this  odi 
ous  town  again,"  I  said.  "  Never,  never !  " 

But  the  next  spring  found  us  back 
once  more,  and  in  the  very  same  lodg 
ings. 

in 

It  was  a  spring  of  the  right  kind.  I 
have  heard  of  Venetian  Aprils  that 
moved  toward  their  close  through  one 
long,  unbroken  succession  of  rainy  days  ; 
this  year,  however,  there  was  an  almost 
uninterrupted  reign  of  sunlight  —  days 
to  tempt  people  out  and  to  keep  them 
out.  We  spent  half  our  time  upon  the 
water  ;  Ethelbert  even  learned  to  row  — 
gondolier  fashion,  of  course. 

But  we  could  not  observe  that  our  du 
cal  neighbor  took  the  same  advantage  of 
season  and  conditions.  We  concluded 
that  she  had  tired  of  the  water  and  of  her 
waterman  —  some  other  whim,  doubt 
less,  had  engaged  her  aged  attention. 
The  smells  from  her  kitchen  constantly 
119 


WHAT   YOUTH   CAN   DO 

addressed  our  noses,  but  we  had  been 
in  our  lodgings  almost  a  fortnight  before 
the  sight  of  her  person  greeted  our  eyes. 
One  afternoon  her  gondola  of  state  came 
gliding  up  to  her  water -steps.  It  was 
manned  now,  as  once  before,  by  old  An 
tonio,  tanned,  gnarled,  weather-beaten. 
Yes,  the  handsome  Piero  was,  after  all, 
a  mere  ephemeral  toy. 

The  big  door  was  thrown  open,  and 
out  came  the  Duchess,  doddering  as 
delightfully  as  ever.  A  maid  or  two 
fluttered  about,  as  of  old,  but  their  mis 
tress  placed  her  chief  dependence  upon 
quite  another  individual  —  a  young  man 
on  whose  arm  she  was  leaning  heavily. 
This  young  man's  clothing  suggested  a 
kind  of  semi-livery,  or  hemi-semi-livery — 
at  least  such  was  the  effect  of  his  tie 
and  of  a  possible  stripe  down  his  trou 
ser-leg.  But  his  manner  suggested  the 
equal,  the  intimate.  He  ordered  the 
maids  about  with  a  confident  superior 
ity,  and  addressed  a  brief  and  imperi- 

120 


WHAT   YOUTH   CAN    DO 

cms  command  to  old  Antonio,  on  the 
poop.  The  Duchess's  face,  more  an 
tique  and  vacuous  than  ever,  wore  a  fond 
simper  of  measureless  content,  as  she 
clasped  the  young  man's  arm  and  looked 
up  youthfully  into  his  face.  Once  more, 
it  was  Piero.  I  saw  what  it  had  come 
to:  he  had  mastered  her;  he  had  laid 
down  a  track  for  her  and  was  running 
her  over  it  daily;  he  filled  her  up  and 
started  her  off;  he  dominated  her,  he 
administered  her ;  and  she  was  happy 
and  content  to  have  it  so. 

We  never  hit  upon  the  precise  title 
for  Piero's  office  ;  after  all,  we  shall  not 
claim  too  close  a  knowledge  of  the  in 
ternal  economy  of  a  great  and  opulent 
ducal  household.  Sometimes  we  called 
him  her  steward,  sometimes  her  cham 
berlain,  sometimes  her  major-domo.  He 
was  all  these,  we  learned,  and  more. 
We  learned  one  thing  besides  :  that  he 
had  removed  us  from  the  list  of  his  ac 
quaintances.  We  tried  him  once  or  twice 

121 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

—  we  put  ourselves  in  his  way.  He 
never  averted  his  eyes ;  he  simply  looked, 
not  at  us,  but  through  us,  past  us,  beyond 
us.  This  was  something  of  a  feat,  and  he 
did  it  very  cleverly. 

He  had  lodgings  in  the  palace  itself, 
of  course.  The  Duchess  had  given  him 
a  handsome  room,  —  or  rather  a  whole 
apartment ;  and  it  was  on  the  plan  no- 
bile,  at  that.  One  room  of  his  suite  was 
fitted  up  as  a  bureau  —  or,  shall  I  say, 
a  study  ?  —  and  was  in  plain  view  from 
Ethelbert's  own  bedchamber.  By  lean 
ing  out  over  the  window-sill  and  taking 
a  painful  twist  a  little  to  the  left  —  sure, 
meanwhile,  that  Ethelbert  had  a  good 
hold  on  me  from  behind  —  I  was  able 
one  day  to  take  a  comprehensive  view  of 
this  study  and  to  make  a  full  inventory 
of  its  contents.  Such  tapestries,  such 
carved  furniture  !  —  I  am  certain  the 
Duchess  herself  had  nothing  better.  I 
learned  from  our  maid,  who  knew  the 
maids  in  the  other  house  (surely  you  and 
122 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

I,  dear  reader,  ought  to  be  on  terms  of 
complete  confidence  by  this  time),  that  he 
had  occupied  this  apartment  but  a  week 
or  two.  When  next  we  saw  him  he  had 
shed  the  last  slight  vestige  of  any  possi 
ble  livery.  What  to  call  him  now,  we 
knew  not  —  her  friend,  perhaps  ;  her 
agent ;  her  confidential  adviser.  And 
the  next  time  the  gondola  went  out,  the 
Duchess  and  her  adviser  sat  under  its 
solemn  black  canopy  side  by  side,  while 
old  Antonio  plied  his  oar  hypnotically, 
as  one  deep  in  some  awesome  dream. 

It  was  not  long  before  other  windows 
in  the  extended  flank  of  Palazzo  Dogliano 
came  to  contribute  to  our  spectacle ; 
other  actors  began  to  appear  and  to  play 
their  parts  with  a  robustious  passion. 
Among  them,  the  nephews.  Giorgio,  in 
particular,  would  dash  into  the  place  and 
make  the  lofty  old  rooms  ring  with  his 
tempestuous  indignation ;  there  were 
times  when  I  felt  almost  compelled  to 
close  our  windows.  And  more  than 
123 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

once  Teodoro  appeared  between  the  cur 
tains,  his  face  whiter  than  they  were,  and 
his  hands  coupled  in  a  desperate  clasp. 
The  two  would  run  through  the  whole 
range  of  protest  and  supplication.  There 
would  be  pounded  fists  as  well  as  clasped 
ones,  and  red  faces  as  well  as  white. 
And  then  they  would  come  down  to  their 
boat  tense  with  indignation  or  limp  with 
utter  despair,  as  the  case  might  be.  And 
next  day  the  same  thing  over  again  with 
variations. 

Of  course  there  was  only  one  explana 
tion  for  all  this  :  the  Duchess  was  doing 
something  with  her  property.  We  asked 
ourselves  whether  the  confidential  Piero 
was  getting  all  of  it,  or  only  half.  Piero's 
own  tones,  as  the  waves  of  controversy 
swashed  against  our  willing  walls,  gave 
us  little  help.  They  were  never  loud  ; 
they  were  seldom  so  distinct  that  poor 
Ethelbert,  for  all  his  straining,  could 
make  out  what  he  said.  But  they  were 
always  firm,  cold,  even,  doggedly  sure; 
124 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

they  were  the  tones  of  a  man  who  had 
definite  rights,  who  knew  that  there  was 
solid  ground  under  his  feet.  We  felt 
sure  that  things  were  going  his  way  — 
that  he  was  already  loading  the  spoils 
into  his  chariot.  It  would  not  have  sur 
prised  us  very  much  to  look  out  some 
fine  morning  and  find  that  he  had  walked 
off  over  night  with  the  palace  itself. 

But  the  palace  continued  to  stand 
where  it  had  always  stood,  —  and  more 
people  began  to  come  to  it.  Elderly 
dowagers  would  arrive  in  gondolas  and 
would  potter  up  the  cracked  and  weedy 
old  steps ;  antique  survivals  of  both 
sexes  would  come  panting  and  fidgeting 
up  to  the  street  entrance,  picking  at 
their  attendants  and  squabbling  among 
themselves;  and  grave,  smooth-shaven 
persons  carrying  portfolios  under  their 
arms  would  pass  in  with  bent  heads  and 
contracted  brows.  And  then,  through 
the  open  windows,  the  mild  May  air 
would  bring  a  swelling  chorus  of  charges, 
125 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

protests,  arguments,  contentions.  We 
felt  the  situation  as  keenly  as  if  present 
—  perhaps,  in  a  sense,  we  were.  It  was 
simple  enough  :  the  Duchess,  seated  on 
a  roseate  cloud,  had  been  flinging  down 
a  golden  shower  upon  her  favorite,  — 
quite  in  the  manner  of  the  allegorical 
fresco  on  the  ceiling  of  her  big  drawing- 
room,  —  and  the  whole  clan,  half  crazy 
with  fear  and  apprehension,  had  come 
together  to  put  a  stop  to  it. 

The  favorite  faced  the  united  family 
and  their  advisers  as  composedly  as  he 
had  faced  the  younger  members  of  it.  I 
dare  say  he  found  these  new  antagonists 
worthier  of  his  steel,  and  gave  them  a 
chance  to  run  their  fingers  over  his  edge. 
I  venture  the  opinion  that  they  could 
have  found  nothing  sharper,  chiller,  more 
inexorable.  What  had  come  to  him  was 
to  remain  with  him  —  that  was  soon 
seen  by  all.  Every  gift  of  the  Duchess 
was  found  to  be  secured  to  him  by  full 
legal  forms.  As  to  the  aggregate  of 
126 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

these  gifts,  there  were  all  kinds  of  rumors 
afloat.  Some  said  that  things  had  been 
stopped  in  time,  and  that  the  losses 
would  not  come  to  more  than  a  mere 
hundred  thousand  francs  ;  others  said 
two  hundred  thousand ;  others  still  said 
half  a  million,  and  added  a  small  estate 
or  so  on  the  mainland. 

The  family  pocketed  their  losses,  to 
whatever  amount,  and  a  conservator  was 
appointed  to  take  charge  of  the  remain 
der  of  the  property.  Piero  left  Venice 
with  his  booty  ;  the  Duchess  languished 
for  a  year  in  a  private  retreat,  passing 
off,  finally,  in  a  kind  of  senile  evapora 
tion,  so  to  speak  ;  and  the  hopeful  Gior 
gio  —  no  longer  a  possibly  favored  heir, 
but  merely  one  of  a  large  connection 
under  the  impartial  hand  of  a  general  ad 
ministrator — went  off  to  Florence,  where 
Elizabeth  Harkins  and  her  aunt  were 
reported  to  have  taken  an  apartment  for 
a  term  of  years. 

127 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 
IV 

Friday.  —  I  have  not  learned  the  pre 
cise  amount  of  money  that  our  aspiring 
youth  carried  away,  but  I  have  just  been 
told  what  he  did  with  it.  Young  Stan 
hope  is  the  one  who  informed  me  —  I 
met  him  on  the  Pincian  this  afternoon, 
after  having  lost  sight  of  him  for  some 
three  seasons.  I  need  not  describe  our 
surroundings  as  we  leaned  over  the  par 
apet  together ;  I  dare  say  the  carriages 
were  circulating,  and  the  dandies  were 
lounging,  and  the  band  was  playing,  and 
the  sun  was  setting  —  it 's  usually  that 
way.  Nor  shall  I  enlarge  on  the  special 
providence  that  brought  this  sprightly 
and  well-informed  youngster  along  just 
in  the  nick  of  time. 

"  Where  did  he  go  after  leaving  Ven 
ice  ?  "  I  asked.  "  To  Florence  ? " 

Stanhope  laughed.  "  You  are  too  fast 
—  a  good  deal  too  fast." 

He  took  the  whole  thing  most  light- 
128 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

heartedly  —  almost  light-headedly.  But 
who  could  expect  an  American  to  feel 
with  any  great  keenness  the  deteriora 
tion  of  old-world  aristocracy  ? 

"  Have  you  ever  heard  of  a  place  called 
Crassegno  ?  "  he  asked  presently. 

"  There  is  a  place  of  that  name,  then  ? 
Where  ? " 

"  It  is  a  few  miles  to  the  north  of  Vi- 
cenza,  among  the  foothills  of  the  Alps  ; 
it 's  a  mere  village." 

"  That 's  where  he  came  from,  is  it  ? " 

"  No ;  that 's  where  he  went." 

"Dear  me!     What  for?" 

"  To  make  his  investment.  Crassegno 
is  a  tiny  town,  but  it  has  its  resident 
nobility.  They  live  in  palaces  —  that 's 
what  they  call  them.  They  dry  up  in 
them  ;  they  shake  about  in  them.  Such 
pride  ;  such  poverty  !  Every  peck  of 
chestnuts  counts ;  the  death  of  a  cow  is 
more  than  the  passing  of  one  of  the  fam 
ily.  Everything  sold  save  the  walls,  the 
roofs,  the  floors.  They  starve,  but  they 
129 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

starve  with  decorum.  Noblesse  oblige, 
and  all  that." 

"  I  know,"  I  said  sadly.  So  goes  the 
world  in  these  degenerate  days.  "But 
what  a  singular  place  to  choose  for  the 
investment  of  one's  —  one's  savings  !  " 

"  Not  at  all ! "  returned  the  young 
man  cheerfully.  "  Not  at  all !  For 
among  those  decayed  nobles  there  was 
one  to  serve  precisely  the  purposes  of 
our  hero.  He  was  an  old  man  of  sev 
enty.  He  had  lost  his  wealth,  his  health, 
his  wife  and  children,  and  most  of  his 
senses  ;  the  struggle  had  been  too  long 
and  too  hard.  One  foot  was  in  the 
grave,  and  the  other  was  dragging  after. 
He  had  absolutely  but  one  thing  left  — 
his  title.  He  was  a  prince  —  the  prince 
—  of  Crassegno.  A  mere  count  might 
have  found  it  easier.  Still,  I  don't  know  ; 
you  are  either  in  the  circle  or  not ;  and 
if  you  are  in  "  — 

"  Precisely,"  said  I,  with  deepest  sym 
pathy.  "  One  must  stand  by  his  order." 
130 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

"  Well,  our  friend  steered  straight  for 
this  venerable  wreck.  He  wanted  a  fa 
ther." 

"A  father?  I  imagine  him  to  have 
had  one  already  ;  I  cannot  conceive  of 
such  talents  totally  disassociated  from 
blood,  from  race.  Poor  fellow!  — he 
ought  to  have  been  acknowledged  !  " 

"A  father  and  a  title  — that's  what 
he  wanted  ;  especially  a  title.  He  ar 
ranged  with  this  old  man  to  adopt  him 

—  more  legal  forms.    He  laid  out  a  good 
two  thirds  of  his  means  in  that  way.    He 
bought  a  father.     And  if  his  father  was 
the  prince  of  Crassegno,  why,  he  was 
the  prince  of  Crassegno  too ;    he   par 
ticipated  in  the  title." 

"  I  see,"  said  I. 

"  The  old  gentleman  spent  the  remain 
der  of  his  days  in  unhoped-for  affluence, 
while  Don  Pietro  Francesco  Maria  della 
Fortuna,  Principe  di  "  — 

"  I  see,"  said  I  again.     "  Don  Pietro 

—  no  mere  '  Piero  '  could  serve  to  name 

131 


WHAT   YOUTH   CAN    DO 

him,  now  —  was  advanced  one  more  stage 
in  his  career." 

"  Exactly.  Then  he  prepared  for  the 
next.  The  remaining  third  of  his  for 
tune  —  no  very  great  sum,  either,  to  tell 
the  real  truth  —  would  serve  to  keep  him 
respectably  for  six  months  or  a  year. 
He  was  ready  now  to  enter  the  matrimo 
nial  market  —  a  noble  with  an  ancient 
title  and  the  heir  to  a  princely  estate." 

"  Princely  in  one  sense,  at  least.  But 
he  needed  money  as  much  as  ever  — 
more  than  ever." 

"  More  than  ever,  yes.  But  he  had 
better  means  than  ever  for  getting  it. 
He  entered  the  matrimonial  market,  as 
I  say.  Not  in  Venice  itself ;  there  are 
other  towns  where  visiting  heiresses  are 
more  numerous.  Besides,  in  Venice  "  — 

"  I  should  say  so  !  "  I  gurgled. 

"  He  went  to  Florence.  In  Florence, 
of  course,  Anglo-Saxon  heiresses  are 
supposed  to  swarm.  There  is  one  Flor 
entine  pension,  you  know,  that  is  little 
132 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

less  than  a  matrimonial  exchange.  The 
young  officers  congregate  there  ;  the 
landlady  lives  on  the  commissions  "  — 

"  I  know  all  that,"  I  said.  "  Well,  his 
ideas  were  correct  enough.  There  was 
one  heiress  in  Florence  that  winter,  at 
least ! " 

"  But  he  was  not  the  vsdy prttendant" 

"  I  dare  say  not." 

"  Nor  the  only  one  from  Venice." 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  the 
Duchess's  nephews  " 

"  One  of  them  was  there  ;  the  hot- 
tempered  one  ;  Count  Giorgio  —  was  that 
his  name  ? " 

"  A  battle  royal !  "  I  exclaimed. 

"  No  echo  of  it  reached  you  ? " 

"We  were  in  Cairo." 

"  The  whole  town  rang." 

"  I  can  imagine  —  with  such  elements 
involved." 

"  Think  of  the  origins  of  the  first  and 
the  rank  of  the  second." 

"  Consider  the  sheer  strength  and  ca- 
133 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

pacity  of  the  one  and  the  noisy  impotence 
of  the  other." 

"All  society  was  involved." 

"Our  young  man  was  received ? " 

"  Almost  everywhere.  Out  of  curios 
ity,  largely." 

"  How  did  he  carry  himself  ?  " 

"  Like  a  prince." 

"  Suaviter  in  modo  ?  "  I  suggested 
smoothly. 

"  No  !  "  Stanhope  almost  shouted ; 
"  fortiter  in  re  !  He  was  no  carpet- 
knight  ;  he  swung  a  battle-axe.  He  did 
not  pirouette  through  society  ;  he  tram 
pled.  He  did  not  stroke  the  social  beast 
through  the  bars  ;  he  broke  into  its  cage 
and  throttled  it  into  submission.  The 
suaviter  in  modo  came  later." 

"  Oh,  the  lion  in  love  !  —  to  return  to 
the  cage." 

"By  'later'  I  mean  at  Crassegno  — 
among  his  own  people." 

"  Then  he  was  not  in  love  ?  " 

"He  may  have  been.  He  may  be 
134 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

still.  They  have  got  along  well  enough 
together." 

"  So  she  took  him  —  and  let  the  other 
go?" 

"There  were  a  good  many  consid 
erations  involved.  But  the  first  and 
foremost  was  this :  Elizabeth  Harkins 
wanted  to  be  a  princess  —  merely  to  be 
a  countess  was  not  enough." 

"  And  she  wanted  to  marry  a  man  as 
well  as  a  prince  ? " 

"Well,  she  did,"  Stanhope  assented 
heartily.  "  He  was  something  in  him 
self  ;  he  took  her  off  her  feet.  Besides, 
she  had  good  ground  for  supposing  that 
his  own  fortune  was  such  as  to  make 
hers  no  special  object." 

"  So  she  took  him  —  and  the  Harkins 
millions  passed  into  his  hands." 

"  They  did  ;  millions  and  millions  — 
a  key  to  unlock  everything  in  the  world." 

"  Another '  stage,"  said  I,  drumming 
on  the  balustrade  and  looking  at  the 
ring  of  revolving  carriages.  "  Then  they 
i35 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

moved  on  to  the  capital  ? "  I  suggested. 
"  They  threw  themselves  into  the  Roman 
arena  ? " 

"  No.  They  went  back  to  their  little 
hill-town  and  lived  there  for  a  year  ;  that 
was  the  place  where  the  millions  were 
to  tell.  The  old  prince  put  his  other 
foot  into  the  grave,  and  the  young  prince 
was  left  with  a  free  hand.  At  the  end 
of  the  year  he  owned  the  whole  town  and 
all  its  inhabitants,  the  whole  country-side 
and  all  its  people,  the  whole  province  and 
all  its  industries  and  interests." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ? " 

"  It  was  the  suaviter  in  modo.  He 
settled  down  there  and  performed  for 
them.  He  had  a  complete  command  of 
the  instrument  and  entertained  them 
magnificently.  He  gave  them  a  good 
deal  of  diapason  and  plenty  of  vox  hu- 
mana.  He  ran  the  whole  gamut  —  from 
grand  seigneur  to  peasant,  and  back 
again.  He  satisfied  their  ideal ;  he  got 
into  their  hearts.  He  gave  them  an 
136 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

astonishing  combination  of  the  familiar 
and  the  majestic  — they  clung  to  their 
old-time  ideas  and  exacted  that  their 
prince  should  seem  the  prince  indeed. 
The  Birmingham  millions  played  their 
part  —  a  large  and  probably  a  funda 
mental  part.  They  formed  the  *  great 
organ'  itself!  Schools,  hospitals,  and 
churches  rained  on  the  devoted  pro 
vince.  Debts  were  paid,  loans  were 
made,  bridges  and  roads  were  constructed 
at  his  private  cost.  The  townspeople 
had  masses  without  end,  and  festas  every 
fortnight  or  so.  Such  doings,  such 
changes  !  —  I  have  seen  them  all  with 
my  own  eyes.  He  captivated  them  com 
pletely —  their  heads,  their  hearts,  their 
fancy.  He  put  them  all  in  his  pocket 
and  buttoned  them  up  there.  Then  he 
told  them  that  he  wanted  to  go  to  " 

"That   he   wanted   to   go   to    Parlia 
ment  !  " 

"Precisely.     Nobody  ventured  to  op 
pose   him.     Nobody  thought  of  voting 
i37 


WHAT   YOUTH   CAN    DO 

against  him.  He  was  elected  unani 
mously,  and  he  can  go  back  on  the  same 
terms  as  often  as  he  chooses." 

"  Well,  he  has  found  his  fulcrum." 
"And  he  will  move  his  world." 
"Yes,"    said    I,  —  "this    poor    Old 
World    that    gives    no    opportunity   to 
merit,  to  talent " 

"  Talent !  "  he  repeated,  laughing.  "  It 
is  n't  talent ;  it 's  genius  !  " 

The  carriages  were  moving  past  us  in 
their  whirling  little  circle  ;  the  sinking 
sun  was  shining  level  in  our  eyes,  and 
the  spokes  of  many  wheels  spun  and  twin 
kled  in  its  rays  ;  the  band  was  braying 
even  more  loudly  than  usual. 

"This  is  all  very  confusing,"  I  mur 
mured,  putting  my  hand  to  my  forehead. 
"  I  need  rest  and  quiet ;  take  me  home." 


Saturday.  —  She  has  sent  me  a  card  : 
The  Princess  of  Crassegno  —  At  home 
—  Friday,     December     tenth  —  Music. 
138 


WHAT   YOUTH    CAN    DO 

And  do  not  let  me  overlook  the  CORO 
NET. 

Ethelbert  sat  back  in  his  easy  chair, 
fanning  himself  (it  was  n't  warm)  with 
the  last  edition  of  the  Popolo  Romano. 

"  We  go,  I  suppose  ? "  I  asked.  "  We 
find  our  place  once  more  in  the  list  of 
his  acquaintances  ? " 

"  So  all  these  wonders  are  true,  then  ?  " 
my  husband  inquired  faintly.  "  This 
young  man  Stanhope  has  been  there  and 
has  seen  things  with  his  own  eyes,  has 
he?" 

"Yes,"  I  replied;  "he  visited  them 
for  a  week  at  Crassegno  itself." 

Ethelbert  gave  a  long,  deep  sigh.  I 
don't  want  ever  to  hear  another  such 
from  him.  It  was  an  audible  confession 
that  he  was  a  poor,  feeble,  ineffective 
old  man  who  had  done  little  with  his 
past  and  could  hope  to  do  nothing  with 
his  future.  His  whiskers  took  on  a  mel 
ancholy  droop  that  was  inexpressibly  af 
fecting.  He  remained  silent. 


WHAT    YOUTH    CAN    DO 

"These  Americans  !  "  I  said.  "  They 
can  go  anywhere  and  do  anything.  I  al 
most  wish  I  had  been  born  one  myself." 

Ethelbert  fluttered  his  newspaper  fee 
bly,  and  looked  at  me  with  tired,  abashed, 
apologetic  eyes. 

"  He  has  carried  his  point,  Sophronia," 
—  with  a  downward  glance  toward  the 
printed  column.  "  He  did  n't  talk  that 
day  for  nothing." 

"  Carried  it  ?     I  knew  he  would  !  " 

Ethelbert  folded  up  the  paper  very 
slowly  and  very  carefully.  "  His  youth 
and  good  looks  brought  him  favor  and 
money." 

"Yes,  and  his  money  brought  him  a 
title." 

"And  his  title,"  pursued  Ethelbert 
musingly,  "brought  him  a  wife  with  a 
fortune." 

"  And  the  fortune  opened  his  way  into 
Parliament." 

"And  his  place  in  Parliament  will 
bring  him  a  —  He  will  enter  the  cabinet 
140 


WHAT   YOUTH   CAN    DO 

in  time,"  Ethelbert  went  on,  with  a  faint, 
broken  gasp.  "  I  see  him  ambassador 
—  even  prime  minister,  perhaps  " — 

"You  generous  old  dear!"  I  cried, 
reaching  down  to  kiss  him. 

"And  then,"  proceeded  Ethelbert, 
pressing  the  thorn  to  his  breast,  "  when 
this  kingdom  becomes  a  republic  "  — 

"  Stop,  my  husband  !  "  I  cried  ;  "  not 
a  word  more  !  "  Then,  "  We  will  go," 
I  added  rapidly.  "We  shall  pass  the 
rest  of  our  natural  life  in  Italy,  and  we 
must  not  deny  ourselves  the  refreshment 
that  comes  from  resting  in  the  shadow 
of  the  great !  " 

141 


THE   PILGRIM   SONS 

SS.  PANANGLIA, 
St.  George's  Channel. 

I  AM  not  the  Rose.  Nor  shall  I  pre 
tend  that  I  have  been  often  near  it. 
Little  more  can  I  claim,  indeed,  than 
to  have  caught  occasional  glimpses  of  it 
through  the  park  palings.  For  me,  how 
ever,  this  has  always  been  enough  ;  —  if 
it  could  but  have  continued  to  be  enough 
for  my  wife,  as  well ! 

There  came  the  day  when,  at  last,  I 
fairly  brushed  against  the  Rose.  This 
occurred  on  the  promenade-deck  of  the 
Seraphic,  her  fourth  day  out.  My  wife 
and  I  were  undertaking  our  first  trip 
abroad.  We  are  now  upon  our  second. 

Not  that  we  had  had  no  previous  ex 
perience  in  travel  —  far  from  it.  We 
had  been  to  Southern  California ;  we  had 
142 


THE   PILGRIM   SONS 

spent  a  February  at  Jacksonville ;  we 
had  even  visited  Canada.  In  fact,  I  shall 
not  try  to  enumerate  the  many  hotel 
porches  on  which  we  had  sat  to  observe 
the  pleasures  of  other  people.  But  this 
passive  part  suited  me  well  enough,  for 
my  tastes  are  quiet ;  —  if  only  these  same 
conditions  could  have  continued  to  suit 
my  wife,  as  well ! 

But  no ;  all  this  was  not  to  be  —  is  not 
to  be,  just  yet.  We  have,  indeed,  seen 
the  citron  palace ;  and  we  have  seen  the 
ice  palace ;  and  we  have  seen  the  corn 
palace ;  but  none  of  these  will  suffice. 
To-day  our  faces  are  turned  toward  the 
sawdust  palace ;  and  this,  wind  and 
weather  permitting,  we  shall  reach  be 
fore  many  hours  are  past. 

The  sawdust  palace  —  the  epithet  is 
not  my  own.  No  ;  I  am  indebted  for  it 
to  old  Brown,  who  has  interrupted  his 
researches  in  Hampshire  (researches  on 
our  behalf)  to  pen  the  page  of  welcome 
which  was  put  into  my  hand  at  Queens- 
143 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

town  an  hour  ago.  His  full  phrase  is, 
"  the  portal  of  the  sawdust  palace."  It 
stands  open  for  us,  he  says. 

Between  you  and  me,  old  Brown  — 
his  pen  once  in  hand  —  is  apt  to  be  a 
bit  florid.  And  since  his  publication 
of  the  "  Genealogy  of  the  Pshaw  Fam 
ily  "  (two  vols.,  quarto,  half  morocco), 
his  consciousness  of  his  literary  qualifi 
cations  has  heightened  this  peculiarity. 
But  I  must  not  allow  myself  to  slur  him, 
for  without  some  hints  from  him  I  never 
could  have  drawn  up  the  present  docu 
ment  —  my  first  attempt,  as  you  must 
see  plainly  enough. 

My  wife  was  once  a  happy  woman, 
and  that,  too,  not  many  months  ago. 
But  slowly  and  imperceptibly  —  so  slowly 
and  imperceptibly  that  I  could  never 
note  its  actual  beginning  —  discontent 
gathered  like  a  cloud  above  her.  Pre 
sently  this  cloud  began  to  discharge  itself 
in  a  mistlike  drizzle  of  words.  At  first  I 
was  somewhat  slow,  let  me  frankly  own, 
144 


THE   PILGRIM    SONS 

in  moving  toward  an  understanding. 
But  after  a  little  the  drizzle  became  a 
pretty  sharp  shower ;  and  the  shower, 
in  turn,  became  a  regular,  heavy  down 
pour.  And  in  the  midst  of  this  down 
pour  came  a  thunderclap  and  a  neat  bit 
of  lightning.  Then  I  understood.  Per 
haps  I  should  have  understood  before. 
But  I  am  only  a  plain,  plodding  person, 
no  cleverer  than  another ;  and,  besides, 
who,  please  tell  me,  would  have  expected 
so  sudden  a  turn  in  a  sensible  woman 
of  forty-two  ? 

"I  am  getting  tired  of  all  this,"  de 
clared  my  wife.  We  were  just  back  from 
the  Catskills.  We  had  decorated  the 
hotel  porch  there  just  as  quietly,  as  in 
dustriously,  as  unobtrusively  as  we  had 
decorated  scores  of  others.  "  I  want  to 
go  somewhere  that 's  worth  while,  and 
see  somebody  that 's  of  some  account, 
and  be  a  little  of  somebody  myself,  if 
possible.  I  want  to  go  to  Europe." 

"  Very  well,"  said  I,  as  soon  as  I  had 


THE   PILGRIM    SONS 

recovered  my  composure  ;  "  you  shall.  I 
will  look  into  the  matter  at  once." 

I  did  so,  and  made  my  report. 

"  We  can  go  on  the  Economia  to  Glas 
gow,"  I  informed  her,  "  for  eighty  dollars 
apiece ;  or  on  the  Vulgaria  for  seventy  ; 
or  the  Vaterland  will  set  us  down  for  a 
little  more  at  Southampton — about  a 
hundred,  if  we  don't  ask  for  their  best." 

"Yes,"  responded  my  wife,  with  flash 
ing  eyes  ;  "  or  we  can  pay  a  decent  price 
for  decent  accommodations,  and  cross 
with  a  crowd  of  people  that  will  be  worth 
while.  We  can  go  by  the  Seraphic,  which 
sails  three  weeks  from  to-day ;  or  by  the 
Archangelic,  which  sails  a  week  later." 

"  We  can,  my  dear,"  I  replied.  "  We 
will."  We  did. 

By  the  Seraphic,  that  is  to  say,  as  I 
have  indicated  at  the  beginning.  I  my 
self  should  have  preferred  the  sailing  of 
a  week  later.  A  few  days  more  would 
have  seen  my  affairs  put  into  a  slightly 
better  condition.  We  should  also  have 
146 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

been  able  to  do  justice  to  the  winter 
wardrobe  of  our  Emmy,  at  Wellesley,  and 
I  should  have  had  an  opportunity  for 
drawing  up  a  code  of  paternal  instructions 
for  the  use  of  George,  at  Cornell.  I  be 
lieve  that  my  wife  herself  might  have 
made  her  outfitting  a  more  complete  suc 
cess,  and  I  believe,  too,  that  she  would 
have  enjoyed  the  extra  seven  days'  clari- 
onification  of  her  plans  and  intentions 
among  our  friends  and  neighbors.  But 
the  choice  of  boats  which  she  seemed  to 
have  presented  to  me  became,  in  reality, 
no  choice  at  all.  For  some  occult  reason, 
it  was  the  Seraphic,  or  nothing,  and  the 
Seraphic  of  that  particular  date,  and  no 
other  date. 

It  was  the  Seraphic  of  that  particular 
date.  My  wife  looked  as  well  as  she 
should  have  looked  in  her  new  brown 
ulster;  and  she  had  three  bouquets  of 
fair  size  (however  come  by)  on  the  mid 
dle  table  of  the  saloon,  and  half  a  dozen 
estimable  people  to  wave  her  adieu  from 
147 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

the  pier.  I  smelt  the  bouquets,  and  then 
went  up  and  waved  with  the  rest,  and 
out  we  slid. 

My  wife  is  a  most  worthy  and  deserv 
ing  woman,  and  if  she  develops  into  the 
heroine  of  this  tale  it  will  be  because  my 
theme  becomes  stronger  than  I  am  and 
runs  away  with  me.  She  has  been  a 
good  wife  and  mother,  a  joy  to  her  fam 
ily,  and  a  credit  to  the  community,  and 
as  such  I  shall  continue  to  think  of  her 
still.  But  I  will  acknowledge  that  ever 
since  that  evening  at  the  horse  show  I 
have  been  more  or  less  uneasy  in  my 
mind. 

I  spoke  to  old  Brown  about  it.  I  my 
self  am  rather  easy-going,  and  old  Brown 
is  more  so.  He  laughed,  as  I  might 
have  known  he  would. 

"  Of  course  she  noticed  how  they  were 
all  dressed,"  he  chuckled.  "  Is  n't  she  a 
woman  ? " 

"  But  she  knew  their  names,  and  their 
faces,  and  their  connections  and  histories 
148 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

—  box  after  box.  You  told  me  so,  your 
self." 

"  Oh,  well,"  observed  old  Brown,  mere 
ly.  But  his  carelessness  was  not  at  all 
reassuring. 

You  know  how  things  are  arranged  at 
the  horse  show :  the  brutes  in  the  mid 
dle  and  the  humans  massed  concentri 
cally  in  the  amphitheatre  around  them. 
Of  the  two  orders  of  beings,  the  humans 
(some  of  them)  attract  by  far  the  more 
attention.  Those  of  some  position,  am 
bition,  or  pretension  occupy  a  circle  of 
boxes  ranged  round  the  front  of  the  am 
phitheatre,  while  persons  of  less  promi 
nence  accommodate  themselves  on  long 
lines  of  seats  behind.  Between  the  boxes 
and  the  central  arena  there  runs  an  ellip 
tical  promenade,  round  which  the  per 
sons  of  less  prominence  may  saunter  and 
may  scrutinize  at  close  range  man's  best 
friend  on  the  one  hand  or  man  himself 
on  the  other.  It  seems  to  me  that  most 
of  the  persons  of  less  prominence  prefer 
149 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

man  himself.  I  am  of  that  humbler  rank 
(or  used  to  be),  and  I  acknowledge  freely 
that  I  have  always  had  more  interest  in 
the  human  than  in  the  brute  side  of  the 
spectacle.  I  take  things —  I  insist  upon 
it  —  quite  simply  and  easily,  with  no  op 
pressive  sense  of  my  own  merits,  with  no 
harassing  belief  that  I  am  getting  less 
than  my  just  dues,  and  certainly  with  no 
overmastering  desire  to  reform  the  uni 
verse.  Such  a  spectacle,  therefore,  as  the 
horse  show  I  have  always  viewed  with  a 
placid  pleasure,  telling  off  that  brilliant 
promenade,  season  after  season,  in  staid 
enjoyment.  And  there  was  a  time  when 
my  wife  could  do  it,  too,  and  do  it  with 
as  full  a  content. 

But  last  year  developed  a  difference. 
I  made  my  customary  suggestion  that  we 
descend  from  our  places  and  take  our 
usual  view  of  things  from  a  nearer  point 
and  a  lower  level.  But  my  wife  hung 
back,  and,  if  I  understood  correctly,  she 
murmured  something  about  such  a  course 
150 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

being  contrary  to  her  ideas  of  dignity.  I 
half  surmised,  in  my  dull  fashion,  that 
perhaps  my  wife  fancied  herself  entitled 
rather  to  a  place  in  a  box  than  to  the 
mere  privilege  of  the  floor  :  how  do  I 
know,  indeed,  but  that  she  panted  for  a 
big  number  placarded  into  the  small  of 
her  back,  and  a  place  in  the  cavalcade  of 
the  ring  ?  But,  really  (as  I  felt),  we  were 
not  rich  (at  least,  not  over-rich),  we  were 
not  clever,  we  were  not  showy,  we  were 
wholly  unlikely  ever  to  achieve  notoriety 
of  any  kind  whatever,  and  I  am  afraid 
that  our  presence  in  so  conspicuous  a 
place  as  a  box  (for  I  say  nothing  about 
the  ring)  would  have  required  a  word  of 
justification  —  or  at  least,  of  explanation. 

"  Very  well/'  I  said,  settling  back  in 
my  seat.  "  But  I  see  several  ladies  of 
the  best  set  walking  in  the  promenade." 

"They  can  afford  to,"  said  my  wife 
shortly,  and  took  a  firm  hold  on  the  arm 
of  her  chair. 

So  we  remained  sitting  where  we  were, 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

prepared  to  enjoy  our  new  access  of  dig 
nity  to  the  full.  Never  before  had  we 
troubled  ourselves  with  such  an  idea. 
But  I  was  just  as  well  pleased  ;  I  pre 
ferred  to  see  in  the  faces  of  other  men's 
wives,  rather  than  in  the  face  of  my  own, 
the  abject  abandonment  to  the  worship  of 
worldly  success  and  the  half-veiled  envy 
of  the  homage  that  such  success  is  only 
too  certain  to  bring. 

But  as  the  evening  wore  on,  my  wife 
grew  perceptibly  restless.  At  length,  old 
Brown  came  lumbering  along,  and  she 
rose  as  if  she  had  reached  some  decision. 
My  wife  has  no  great  esteem  for  old 
Brown  —  what  he  might  think  or  might 
remark  would  give  her  very  little  con 
cern  ;  so  I  knew  what  she  was  going  to 
say  before  she  said  it :  she  felt  tired  and 
cramped,  and  she  thought  it  would  rest 
her  to  walk  round  just  once,  if  Mr. 
Brown  — 

So  off  they  went.    It  was  impossible  to 
follow  their  progress  over  that  vast  and 
152 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

crowded  oval ;  but  I  know  (now)  just 
how  my  wife's  face  must  have  looked 
during  the  whole  of  that  momentous 
course.  It  wore  the  same  look  of  over 
strained  attention  that  I  observed  during 
our  earliest  tramps  up  and  down  the 
promenade-deck  of  the  Seraphic,  —  par 
ticularly  at  such  moments  as  we  hap 
pened  to  be  passing  the  doors  or  port 
holes  of  a  certain  extensive  suite  de  luxe ; 
for  the  Seraphic  pushes  luxury  to  the 
utmost  bounds  of  a  bewildering  and 
abandoned  ostentation,  and  can  give  you 
absolutely  anything  that  you  are  able  to 
pay  for.  Yes,  my  wife's  eyes,  her  ears, 
her  inmost  being,  must  have  been  alert 
and  straining  for  some  intimate  but  in 
stantaneous  revelation  ;  her  face  must 
have  blazoned  the  hope  of  brushing 
against  some  gorgeous  manifestation  or 
other,  and  of  carrying  away  some  part  of 
the  gilding.  But  when  she  returned  to 
her  place  her  expression  was  impatient, 
disappointed,  and  she  resumed  her  seat 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

with  a  little  sigh  and  with  a  vexed  twitch 
at  her  toilette. 

"Their  box  was  empty,  after  all," 
Brown  whispered  to  me. 

"Whose?"  I  demanded  severely.  I 
did  not  recognize  his  right  to  be  so  con 
fidential  —  on  such  a  theme. 

But  Brown  only  laughed — with  such 
an  assumption  of  familiarity  that  I  could 
almost  have  slapped  his  face. 

"They  will  need  me  some  time  — 
again,"  Brown  added  presently  in  his 
musing,  semi-detached  fashion. 

"What  for?"  I  asked,  quite  in  the 
dark,  but  willing  to  be  switched  off  on  to 
another  track  for  the  good-will  I  bear  to 
Brown  himself,  who  is  a  dear  old  chap, 
after  all,  and  one  of  my  real  friends.  Of 
course,  slapping  his  face,  or  even  think 
ing  of  it,  was  quite  beside  the  question. 

But  old  Brown  chuckled  to  himself  and 

lumbered  off  again  —  to  buy  his  passage 

to  Liverpool,  it   seemed  ;   for  the  next 

time  I  saw  him  it  was  in  the  saloon  of 

i54 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

the  Seraphic.  He  was  just  adding  a 
fourth  bouquet  to  my  wife's  collection. 

"  This  is  good  of  you,"  I  cried,  shaking 
his  hand  warmly.  I  shook,  and  shook, 
and  gradually  merged  my  thanks  into 
a  good-by.  "There  goes  the  bell,  you 
know.  You  don't  want  to  be  carried  off, 
do  you  ?  Not  but  that  I  should  like  to 
have  you,  though,"  I  added  cordially,  and 
I  meant  it. 

"H'm  —  I  don't  know,"  replied  old 
Brown  in  a  leisurely  voice.  "  I  should  n't 
mind ;  I  'd  just  as  soon  be."  And  a 
smile  overtook  his  wide  mouth  and  his 
kind  old  eyes.  He  then  transferred  these 
eyes  to  the  fourth  bouquet.  "  Not  much, 
is  it  ?  "  he  said  apologetically  ;  "  but 
every  little  helps." 

"  Helps  ? "  I  repeated  resentfully. 
And  then  I  noticed  that  my  wife's  other 
baskets  were  all  of  the  same  size  and 
style,  and  were  all  tagged  by  the  same 
hand.  But  I  did  not  make  my  observa 
tion  public.  We  must  bear  and  forbear, 


THE   PILGRIM    SONS 

and  Ellen  has  always  been  a  good  wife 
and  mother  and  friend. 

"But  look  at  those!"  exclaimed  old 
Brown,  with  the  considerate  air  of  one 
who  contrives  a  pitying  diversion.  I 
thanked  him  inwardly,  and  followed  the 
hand  that  pointed  down  the  saloon  to 
the  middle  section  of  the  middle  table. 
Here  half  a  dozen  enormous  floral  fabri 
cations,  beribboned  and  becarded,  formed 
the  nucleus  of  a  vast  and  elaborate  dis 
play  ;  they  nodded  and  flaunted  above  a 
score  of  minor  manifestations  of  the  flo 
rist's  art,  and  round  them  half  a  hundred 
men  and  women  pressed,  and  crowded, 
and  fluttered,  and  fingered,  and  won 
dered,  and  smelt. 

"  They  're  aboard,"  said  Brown  laconi 
cally. 

"They!  Who?"  My  eye  fastened 
itself  on  a  great  mass  of  nodding  roses, 
over  which  were  crossed  the  English  and 
American  flags. 

Old  Brown  hitched  up  his  shoulder. 
156 


THE   PILGRIM    SONS 

"  The  Pilgrim  Sons,"  he  replied. 
"  They  're  going  back." 

The  crowd  ebbed  and  flowed.  Shoul 
ders  and  elbows  clashed  against  one  an 
other  ;  noses  buried  themselves  in  the 
blossoms  ;  hands  patted  the  big  bows  of 
saffron  and  blue ;  eyes  devoured  the 
well-known  names  on  the  cards  and  the 
angularly  scratched  addenda  that  supple 
mented  them.  And  in  the  fore  of  the 
fight,  contending  with  the  rest,  I  saw  my 
own  wife. 

Our  eyes  met.  I  turned  mine  away 
at  once,  but  not  before  I  had  seen  Ellen 
achieve  a  sudden  effect  of  sated  curiosity, 
almost  of  wearied  indifference.  In  spite 
of  myself,  I  glanced  at  her  again  ;  within 
this  five  seconds  of  grace  she  had  gone 
so  far  as  to  achieve  an  amused  patron 
age  for  the-  distempered  interest  of  the 
rest.  It  is  at  such  moments  as  this  that 
I  freely  acknowledge  my  wife's  right  to  a 
career. 

When  I  turned  round  again,  she  was 
i57 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

beside  us.  She  had  a  passenger-list  in 
her  hand.  It  was  the  very  first  one  that 
I  saw  —  I  don't  know  how  she  contrived 
to  get  hold  of  it  so  soon.  It  seemed  to  be 
folded  for  easy  reference.  She  thanked 
Brown  civilly  enough  for  the  flowers  — 
not  so  civilly  but  that  I  added  some  more 
thanks  of  my  own  to  hers  ;  and  presently 
she  discovered  that  his  name  was  in 
cluded  in  the  list.  I  might  have  guessed 
for  myself  that  he  was  going  ;  but  then, 
as  I  say,  I  am  no  cleverer  than  another. 

"  Yes,"  said  old  Brown  genially,  "  I  'm 
crossing  again." 

"What  for  —  this  time  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Tombstones  —  same  as  before,"  he 
replied.  "  I  'm  going  to  give  a  little  fur 
ther  attention  to  the  graves  of  the  Wash- 
ingtons,  and  I  've  got  two  or  three  new 
families  to  fix  out :  town  records,  parish 
registers,  coats  of  arms  from  old  monu 
ments  —  that  sort  of  thing.  Don't  you 
want  something  in  my  line  ?  Don't  you 
want  to  be  traced  back  to  Edward  III.  — 
158 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

or  somebody  ?  Come,  say  yes  ;  I  '11  do  it 
for  my  actual  expenses." 

"  No,  I  don't,"  I  replied.  "  My  father 
kept  a  country  store  at  Schenectady,  and 
my  grandfather  farmed  it  in  Vermont, 
and  that 's  all  there  is  to  it." 

"  Why,  Theodore  !  "  said  my  wife. 

Now  why  should  my  wife  have  said, 
"  Why,  Theodore  "  ?  It  nettled  me. 

"They  behaved  themselves,"  I  said, 
therefore,  "  and  paid  their  debts,  and 
brought  up  their  children  properly.  It 
strikes  me,  do  you  know,  that  that 's 
reaching  a  pretty  high  average  in  such  a 
world  as  ours." 

"  Yes ;  but  did  n't  any  of  'em  come 
over  ? "  persisted  old  Brown.  He  was 
looking  at  me  jocularly  from  above  his 
spectacles,  and  I  suddenly  recalled  his 
ability  to  take  a  facetious  view  of  his  own 
profession.  "  Come,  say  they  came  over 
about  1630  or  1636.  Say  they  were  of 
good  yeoman  stock  in  Warwick  or  North 
ampton.  Give  me  something  to  start 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

on  !  "  cried  old  Brown,  in  the  accents  of 
a  mock  pleading. 

"  Perhaps  they  did,  and  perhaps  they 
didn't,"  I  replied.  "  Perhaps  they  were 
and  perhaps  they  were  n't.  I  don't  know, 
and  I  don't  care." 

"  Dear  me  !  "  exclaimed  Brown.  "  Is 
that  the  way  you  talk  ?  Don't  you  want 
the  right  crest  on  your  stationery  ?  Don't 
you  want  the  proper  coat  of  arms  on  your 
carriage  ?  Don't  you  want  to  be  decently 
received  by  your  English  cousins  when 
you  go  to  visit  in  your  dear  old  home  ? 
Don't  you  want —  Dear  me,  I, never 
saw  such  a  man  in  my  life  !  " 

My  wife  paused  in  the  creasing  and  re- 
creasing  of  her  list.  "  I  can  remember 
my  grandmother  saying  that  she  was  a 
second  cousin  of  Lord "  -  my  partner 
began ;  but  the  bell  jangled  out  once 
more,  the  last  section  of  the  departing 
crowd  gave  a  final  rush,  and  I  was  left 
in  the  same  ignorance  as  regarded  the 
aristocratic  connection  of  the  other  side 
160 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

of  the  house  that  I  had  enjoyed  for  the 
past  twenty  years  —  not  to  speak  of  the 
twenty-five  before. 

The  weather  was  fairly  good  at  the 
start,  and  continued  so  for  a  day  or  two. 
We  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  in  the  open 
air ;  we  walked  up  and  down  the  deck, 
as  we  saw  other  people  doing,  and  some 
times  we  laid  ourselves  out  on  chairs, 
as  we  saw  still  others  preferring  to  do. 
We  walked,  yes  ;  but  with  this  differ 
ence  :  the  rest  of  the  company  changed 
from  side  to  side,  according  as  the  sun 
moved,  or  the  wind  shifted,  or  the  deck 
hands  willed.  But  we,  I  noticed,  regard 
less  of  wind  or  weather,  or  of  our  own 
convenience,  or  that  of  other  people, 
walked  habitually  on  the  port  side.  I 
myself  should  have  preferred  a  change, 
if  only  for  the  sake  of  change ;  but  my 
wife  knows  what  she  wants,  and  what 
she  wants  I  usually  want  too.  Only, 
while  I  had  eyes  for  the  horizon,  the 
yards,  the  pushing  prow,  the  hundreds 
161 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

of  nautical  novelties  all  about  me,  Ellen 
had  eyes  for  the  doors  of  the  suites  de 
luxe  alone. 

There  came  a  change.  The  ocean 
heaved  and  tumbled  and  the  sky  went 
gray.  Ellen  lay  composedly  in  her  deck- 
chair,  and  I  retired  to  my  cabin.  For 
two  days  I  fed  on  the  swinging  of  cur 
tains  and  the  straining  of  partitions,  — 
with  a  spoonful  or  two  of  oatmeal  gruel 
in  between,  —  while  the  big  waves  tum 
bled  on  a  horizon  brought  miraculously 
near,  and  old  Father  Ocean  seemed  bent 
on  showing  how  many  kinds  of  fool  he 
could  be.  My  seclusion  was  complete. 
Ellen  remained  above ;  I  had  made  no 
acquaintances ;  I  had  not  even  taken 
occasion  to  go  over  the  passenger-list. 
In  time  I  tottered  up  to  air  and  sunlight. 
Ellen  herself  had  suffered  never  a  qualm. 
It  is  at  such  a  juncture  as  this  that  a 
husband  may  feel  his  inferiority  to  his 
wife;  Ellen's,  I  acknowledge,  is  a  more 
masterful  spirit  than  mine. 
162 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

Old  Brown  came  tramping  along,  as  I 
lay  there  feebly  in  my  chair— not  close 
to  Ellen's,  for  the  deck  steward  had  seen 
fit  to  part  us.  Old  Brown  looked  red 
and  rosy,  and  atrociously  competent  and 
healthy  as  he  stood  before  me  at  his  angle 
of  forty-five  degrees  —  oh,  how  it  was 

rolling  ! but  he  did  not  condole  with 

me  nor  patronize  me.  I  could  n't  have 
struck  him  if  he  had.  He  knew  it  ;  his 
treatment  of  me  is  always  fair. 

"They  are  on  deck,  too,"  he  an 
nounced.  He  had  planted  himself  before 
me  in  complete  disdain  of  any  prop.  All 
at  once  he  changed  his  angle  of  incli 
nation  from  starboard  to  port,  and  substi 
tuted  a  background  of  sea  for  a  back 
ground  of  sky. 

"  Who  ? "  I  asked  feebly,  for  he  made 
me  dizzy. 

"  The  Pilgrims,"  he  responded.  "  The 
New  York  one  is  in  the  smoking-room, 
and  the  Boston  one  is  reading  '  Vanity 

Fair '  abaft." 

163 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

"Do  go  away,"  I  said  pettishly,  and 
turned  my  poor  weak  head  to  the  other 
side. 

And  turning  thus,  I  saw  my  wife.  She 
stood  about  twenty-five  feet  away,  and  she 
was  duplicating  old  Brown's  shiftings 
and  slantings  with  an  immense  spirit  and 
promptness  and  precision.  You  might 
have  thought  her  the  daughter,  the  wife, 
the  mother,  of  sailors ;  you  might  have 
fancied  her  as  having  navigated  the  high 
seas  on  a  dolphin's  back  from  time  im 
memorial.  I  felt  like  a  weak  rag  beside 
her.  I  am  one. 

Immediately  in  front  of  her  were  two 
children  —  a  pair  of  prepossessing  little 
things  of  seven  and  eight,  who  were  at 
tired  discreetly  and  tastefully  in  modi 
fied  sailor  style.  Each  was  attended  by 
a  nurse,  arrayed  after  her  kind. 

Ellen  was  petting  these  children,  try 
ing  to  engage  and  to  hold  their  attention. 
And  I  recall  now  —  though  I  did  not 
notice  it  then  —  that  this  little  group 
164 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

was  posed  before  the  entrance  to  one  of 
the  cabines  de  luxe ;  and  I  have  thought 
since  that  Ellen  knew  it,  and  meant  it  to 
be  so. 

Now  Ellen,  as  I  have  said  before,  has 
been  a  good  mother  to  my  children  :  she 
attended  to  all  their  little  aches  and  pains 
and  always  saw  that  their  wardrobes  were 
kept  up  in  proper  fashion.  But  I  never 
observed  that  her  liking  for  her  own  chil 
dren  extended  to  children  generally  —  I 
should  never  have  figured  her  as  posing 
for  a  picture  of  Caritas.  So  I  wondered, 
naturally  enough,  what  she  was  after. 

"  That  is  n't  the  Rose,"  said  old  Brown, 
as  he  waved  his  finger-tips  toward  the 
little  group  of  children  and  attendants. 
"  It 's  only  the  buds  and  some  of  the  out 
lying  foliage.  And  as  for  the  stalk — that 
is  in  the  smoking-room,  as  I  have  already 
explained.  But  the  Rose,  the  real  rose, 
the  real  heart  of  the  rose,  is  there,  — 
'within/  as  the  dramatist  would  say." 
And  he  waved  his  finger-tips  again  — 
165 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

toward  the  door  beside  which  my  wife 
was  standing. 

"  I  thought  you  'd  gone,"  I  groaned. 
I  drew  my  rug  over  my  face  —  I  hardly 
knew  why. 

"  I  have  n't,"  responded  old  Brown 
placidly.  "The  Rose  remains  within 
the  greenhouse,"  he  proceeded.  "She 
disdains  to  be  refreshed  by  the  general 
shower,  but  is  revived  by  the  application 
of  her  own  private  watering-pot  thrice 
daily." 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  I  mumbled,  from 
beneath  my  shelter,  "are  you  talking 
about  some  lady  who  takes  her  meals  in 
her  cabin  instead  of  in  the  saloon  ? " 

"  I  am,"  said  old  Brown. 

"  And  do  you  want  to  tell  me  who  she 
is  ? " 

"  I  do,"  said  old  Brown. 

"  And  will  you  go  away  as  soon  as  you 
have  told  me,  and  leave  me  alone  ? " 

"  I  will,"  said  old  Brown. 

I  rose  again  to  the  surface.  "  Who  is 
166 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

she,  then?"  I  asked,  showing  the  tip  of 
my  nose  above  my  rug. 

Old  Brown  spoke  never  a  word.  He 
took  a  passenger-list  from  his  pocket, 
folded  it  in  a  particular  manner,  laid  it 
on  my  chest,  pointed  to  some  six  or  eight 
lines  of  broken  type,  and  walked  away. 
And  then  I  knew. 

I  saw  that  I  was  in  almost  immediate 
contact  with  one  of  our  most  eminent 
families.  I  had  never  yet  seen  a  single 
member  of  it,  but  for  months  past  I  had 
heard  their  plans  canvassed  and  criticised 
in  society  and  in  the  newspapers,  and 
now  I  was  a  witness  to  the  actual  carry 
ing  out  of  them.  I  was  now  breathing 
the  same  air  with  these  distinguished 
voyagers,  and  this  air  was,  properly 
enough,  the  broad  zone  of  neutral  atmo 
sphere  that  separates  America  from  Eng 
land.  For  the  eminent  family,  root  and 
branch,  had  completely  renounced  the 
New  World  and  were  about  to  resume 
an  interrupted  allegiance  to  the  Old. 
167 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

The  instant  I  read  their  names,  I  saw 
the  real  reason  for  my  wife's  peculiar 
conduct.  I  saw  now  why  she  had  prome 
naded  at  the  horse  show  ;  I  saw  why  we 
had  left  on  one  particular  steamer  and 
on  one  particular  date ;  I  saw  why  she 
had  busied  herself  over  the  flowers  and 
flags  on  the  saloon  table  at  the,  hour  of 
departure ;  I  saw  why  we  had  done  all 
our  tramping  on  only  one  side  of  the 
ship ;  and  I  saw  the  motive  of  my  wife's 
attention  to  the  brace  of  nautical  infants. 
Oh,  Ellen,  Ellen  !  —  Do  you  wonder  now, 
dear  reader,  that  I  withhold  our  family 
name  ? 

I  returned  to  the  list  in  sheer  self-de 
fense.  There  were  the  two  men,  and 
their  two  wives,  and  their  five  or  six 
associated  children,  and  the  valets  and 
maids  and  nurses  (lumped  as  such,  with 
out  the  dignity  of  their  own  proper 
names).  "  Why,  there  must  be  as  many 
as  eighteen  of  them  !  "  I  exclaimed  to 
myself. 

168 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

"  Eighteen  ?  There  are  more  than  two 
dozen  of  them,"  said  a  voice  at  my  elbow 

—  old  Brown's. 

"Brown,"  I  cried,  "you  promised  to 
go  away.  As  soon  as  I  can  stand  on  my 
feet  I  '11  kill  you  ! " 

"  I  did  go  away,"  he  rejoined  serenely. 
"  I  went  as  far  as  the  smoking-room  door. 
I  Ve  come  back  again." 

I  threw  the  list  down  on  to  the  deck, 
and  drew  my  rug  close  round  my  throat 
and  chin. 

Brown  picked  up  the  list  with  no  indi 
cation  of  offense  :  he  is  one  of  the  few 
who  know  how  to  make  allowance  for  a 
seasick  man. 

"There 's  an  uncle,  too,"  he  said,  "and 
a  sister-in-law.  And  here  in  the  B's  is 
the  secretary  —  under  his  own  name,  of 
course.  And  the  governess  is  in  the  L's. 
And  the  coachman  is  in  the  second  cabin 

—  he 's  going  home,  too.     Did  you  ever 
go  through  a  riot  on  shipboard  ?  "  asked 
old  Brown  suddenly.    "Perhaps  I  should 

169 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

say  a  mutiny,  though,  since  we  are  at 
sea." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? "  I  asked.  I 
was  feeling  miserable  enough,  but  almost 
anybody  can  take  an  interest  in  a  fight, 
and  at  almost  any  time. 

"  They  have  'em  in  the  fire-room  some 
times,  when  the  day  is  extra  hot  and  the 
force  a  little  short-handed.  And  they 
have  'em  in  the  second  cabin  sometimes, 
when  a  servant  —  they  're  having  one 
there  now.  The  coachman  is  a  decent 
enough  young  fellow,  but  the  resolutions 
passed  by  a  clique  among  the  second- 
class  passengers  declare  him  '  a  menial,' 
and  they  protest  that "  —  Old  Brown 
gesticulated  the  rest  of  his  statement 
to  some  dark  clouds  on  the  northern 
horizon. 

"  There  '11  be  another  riot,  too,  —  on 
shore,"  he  proceeded  with  an  unabated 
cheerfulness.  "  Some  fine  day  the  family 
will  dine  in  their  private  apartment  and 
send  the  secretary  and  the  governess 
170 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

down  to  the  general  table  d'hote — as 
another  of  our  eminent  families  once  did 
in  Paris.  Then  the  whole  cosmopolitan 
clientele  of  a  big  hotel,  declining  to  ac 
knowledge  the  primacy  of  our  eminent 
family,  will  rise  in  its  wrath  and"- 

Old  Brown  again  waved  the  end  of  his 
sentence  to  the  clouds,  whose  darkness 
might  well  have  typified  the  storm  he 
shrank  from  depicting. 

"  However,"  he  ambled  on  presently, 
"  it 's  pleasant  enough  to  see  them  finally 
united  among  themselves.  The  strength 
of  union  is  required  for  such  an  under 
taking  as  theirs,  eh  ? " 

Then  I  recalled  the  quarrel  that 
throughout  a  whole  autumn  had  rever 
berated  among  the  hills  of  Western 
Massachusetts  and  had  started  a  long 
train  of  rattling  echoes  in  the  columns 
of  the  public  prints.  The  headship  of 
the  clan  was  in  dispute.  The  Boston 
side  had  claimed  primacy ;  they  were 
the  elder  branch,  they  maintained  ;  they 
171 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

had  always  held  to  the  original  ground, 
and  they  avowed  themselves  the  better 
exponents  and  guardians  of  the  traditions 
of  the  line.  The  New  York  side  dis 
puted  this  primacy  ;  they  were  the  richer, 
the  more  numerous,  the  more  brilliant, 
the  more  widely  known  ;  they  w^ere  too 
much  of  the  living  present  to  lay  any 
great  stress  on  tradition,  and  they  glozed 
over  their  change  of  base  in  the  early 
twenties  by  declaring  that  in  leaving 
Shawmut  for  Manhattan  they  had  but  left 
the  skirts  of  the  arena  for  the  centre  of 
it.  The  quarrel  was  pushed  to  the  break 
ing  point,  when  suddenly  a  bright  light 
seemed  to  burst,  a  wider  horizon  to  open, 
a  greater  cause  and  a  greater  opportunity 
to  make  themselves  manifest,  and  both 
factions,  uniting,  embraced  the  common 
idea  of  seeking  peace  and  amity  in  a 
fresh  wide  field  beyond  the  sea. 

"  Brave  thing  to  do,"  commented  old 
Brown   simply.     "The  antique  Pilgrim 
spirit  still  survives,  eh  ?  " 
172 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

That  night  there  was  another  change 
in  the  weather,  and  the  next  morning 
we  found  a  corresponding  change  in  the 
deck  arrangements.  For  in  the  interval 
those  black  clouds  had  risen  and  emptied 
themselves  upon  us,  and  had  left  us  with 
a  clear  sky,  a  shifted  wind,  and  a  gen 
eral  shake-up  of  chairs.  Ellen  and  I 
came  together  again  on  the  other  side  of 
the  ship,  and  alongside  of  us  there  was 
an  orderly  range  of  wicker-chairs  —  not 
mere  O.  C.  ones,  like  our  own  —  which 
the  deck  steward  had  never  ventured  to 
disperse.  There  were  four  or  five  of 
them  ;  they  had  a  distinct  air  of  individ 
uality  and  elegance,  and  they  were  all 
marked  on  the  back  with  the  appropriate 
initials.  I  knew  what  those  initials  were 
before  I  looked  to  see,  but  I  shall  not 
give  them  here.  Nor  shall  I  speculate 
on  the  —  the  chance  that  brought  these 
chairs  and  ours  together. 

I  drowsed  in  one  chair,  with  a  supine 
and  lethargic  effect  of  which  I  should 
i73 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

have  been  heartily  ashamed  on  land  ;  next 
me  reclined  Ellen  (in  her  neat  brown 
ulster,  or  whatever),  passive,  placid,  de 
corous  ;  beyond  Ellen,  upon  the  nearest 
of  the  wicker-chairs,  lay  another  woman 
who  was  too  thoroughly  wrapped  up  to 
be  easily  distinguishable,  even  by  any 
body  who  had  seen  her  before.  I  never 
had,  but  I  divined  instantly  who  she 
was  —  the  Rose.  This  was  the  total  re 
sult  of  one  of  my  completely  conscious 
intervals.  But  it  was  enough,  and  I 
dozed  off  again. 

Presently  a  slight  sound  startled  me: 
a  book  had  slipped  from  its  niche  in  the 
folded  coverings  of  our  bemuffled  neigh 
bor,  and  had  fallen  with  a  smart  slap  on 
to  the  deck.  I  half  turned  my  head  and 
half  opened  my  eyes  :  an  eager  woman 
in  a  brown  ulster  had  already  seized  the 
volume  and  was  returning  it  to  its  owner 
with  a  quick  officiousness  that  almost 
made  me  blush.  Was  it  Ellen,  my  wife, 
as  for  an  instant  I  imagined  ?  No,  no,  — 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

congratulate  me  on  the  fact ;  it  was  only 
a  misguided  creature  dressed  just  like 
her,  who  had  sat  opposite  us  during  my 
first  (and  only)  dinner,  and  who  had  been 
hovering  upon  the  circumference  of  high 
fashion  ever  since. 

Ellen  ?  No.  That  admirable  woman 
made  not  the  slightest  sign  —  never 
stirred,  never  opened  her  eyes,  never 
moved  a  feature.  Yet  I  could  stake  my 
life  that  she  sensed  the  whole  situation, 
tingled  with  it,  felt  it,  heard  it,  almost 
saw  it.  How  do  I  know,  you  ask.  Dear 
reader,  observe  carefully  the  next  cat 
you  happen  to  encounter  lying  before  a 
kitchen  fire.  You  may  say  to  me  that 
she  is  in  a  careless  doze  ;  but  I  say  to  you 
that  she  is  in  a  state  of  high  and  unin 
terrupted  nervous  tension.  She  knows 
where  you  are,  and  what  you  are  about, 
and  just  what  the  chances  are  of  your 
stepping  on  her  tail.  So  with  Ellen.  I 
knew  I  could  trust  her,  and  presently 
I  slid  off  placidly  into  another  nap. 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

In  time  I  became  dimly  conscious  of  a 
little  conversation  going  on  close  at  hand. 
It  was  irregular,  broken,  full  of  lapses 
and  revivals,  casual,  indifferent  —  as  if 
neither  participant  had  much  to  say,  or 
cared  very  much  whether  she  said  it  or 
no.  But  it  was  a  conversation,  all  the 
same,  and  the  voice  of  one  speaker  was 
the  voice  of  my  wife,  and  the  voice  of  the 
other  speaker  was  the  voice  of  the  Rose. 

"  What  did  you  talk  about  ?  "  I  asked 
Ellen,  when  next  we  were  alone. 

"  Oh,  nothing  in  particular,"  she  re 
plied,  with  a  vague  but  complacent  smile. 

"  But  how  —  how  —  ? "  No  ;  that  ques 
tion  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  put. 
Could  you  yourself,  dear  friend,  have 
blurted  out  the  inquiry  that  paused  upon 
my  lips? — the  inquiry,  "How  did  you 
start  the  talk  ?  "  As  for  myself,  I  have 
imagined  a  dozen  beginnings.  Not  the 
sea,  nor  the  weather  ;  no  such  bungling 
as  that  for  my  clever  Ellen.  Perhaps  the 
fringes  of  their  rugs  became  entangled  ; 
176 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

perhaps  they  spilled  beef-tea  on  each 
other ;  perhaps  Ellen  abducted  the  stew 
ard  from  the  other  woman,  and  then 
apologized  for  it ;  perhaps  she  contrived 
to  squeeze  a  finger  between  the  two 
chairs  and  made  the  other  woman  apolo 
gize  to  her.  Perhaps  —  but  no  matter  ; 
they  became  acquainted. 

You  may  expect  me  to  have  done  as 
much  with  the  men  of  the  party  as  my 
wife  did  with  the  women.  But  I  accom 
plished  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  indeed 
encountered  the  two  (they  were  cousins) 
in  the  smoking-room  once  or  twice,  but 
I  had  no  words  with  them.  They  were 
big,  well-kept,  well-fed,  handsome  fellows, 
whose  faces  and  bearing  hinted  at  large 
possibilities  in  the  direction  of  an  ex-ter 
ritorial  career  ;  and  I  believe  that  one  of 
them,  at  least  (the  New  York  one),  would 
have  spoken  to  me  if  I  had  only  spoken 
to  him.  He  looked  at  me  now  and  then 
(he  was  my  junior  by  a  few  years)  as  if 
he  detected  in  my  make-up  the  qualities 
177 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

proper  to  a  discreet  and  sympathetic  con 
fidant  ;  and  indeed  I  will  not  dispute  the 
justice  of  the  expectation  that  he  should 
have  taken  me  into  one  of  those  leathery 
angles  behind  the  card-tables  and  frankly 
have  given  me  his  explanation,  his  apo 
logy,  his  whatever  for  his  own  unique  and 
exceptional  course.     Nothing  of  the  kind, 
however,  came   about.     I  am  no  diplo 
mat,  and  I  am  unduly  shy,  perhaps,  in 
the   presence  of  celebrity  ;    besides,  he 
seemed  so  brooded  over  by  a  vast  yet 
uncertain  future,  that  I  would  no  sooner 
have  interrupted  his  meditative  smoke 
upon  the  deck  of  the  Seraphic  than  one 
of  his  own  forefathers  would  have  inter 
rupted   the   prayer  of  a  Bradford  or  a 
Carver  upon  the  deck  of  the  Mayflower. 
So  I  left  him  to  the  flatteries  of  those 
who  fawned  and  to  the  cumbersome  con 
scientiousness  of  those  others  who,  with 
a  Spartan -like  aloofness,  held   out  for 
equality  to  the  total  exclusion  of  frater 
nity,  and  contented  myself  with  talking 
178 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

things  over,  not  with  the  subject  himself, 
but  with  my  wife  and  old  Brown. 

"  You  thought  he  seemed  lonely,  eh  ? " 
observed  Brown.  "  Well,  that 's  the  fate 
of  eminence,  of  celebrity,  of  leadership 
in  a  great  cause.  I  guess  the  others 
were  lonely,  too,  were  n't  they  ? " 

The  others  ?  Did  he  mean  the  secre 
tary  and  the  governess  ? 

"  Yes,  the  others  —  the  great-great- 
great-grandfathers.  And  their  loneliness 
was  n't  for  a  single  week,  either ;  they 
had  eight  or  nine  of  it." 

"What's  time  got  to  do  with  it?" 
I  objected.  "It  isn't  the  number  of 
weeks  you  are  on  the  water ;  it 's  having 
gone  on  the  water,  to  start  with.  That 's 
where  the  nerve  comes  in  —  or  the  folly." 

"  They  did  n't  have  anybody  to  pass 
bouillon  and  sandwiches  in  the  middle  of 
the  forenoon,"  continued  Brown,  with  his 
eye  on  the  distant  figure  of  the  sidling 
deck-steward.  "  They  did  n't  have  a  ten- 
course  dinner  served  at  twilight." 
179 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

"  It  is  n't  the  food,"  I  moaned  ;  "  it 's 
the  being  able  to  eat  it  —  or  not  able." 

"  They  did  n't  have  twin  screws  and 
water-tight  compartments  and  double 
bottoms,"  went  on  old  Brown  tiresomely. 
"  They  did  n't  post  up  five  hundred  miles 
every  noon  in  the  companionway." 

"  I  don't  care  if  they  did  n't,"  I  growled. 
"  I  only  wish  this  had  been  a  leaky  old 
tub,  too,  and  that  we,  as  well  as  they, 
had  had  to  put  back  to  port  before  we 
had  fairly  got  started." 

"  Why,  Theodore  !  "  said  my  wife. 

"  Oh,  well,"  continued  Brown  sooth 
ingly,  "  I  'm  not  disputing  your  heroism, 
nor  that  of  the  Queen's  new  lieges,  either. 
Perhaps  they  are  more  heroic  than  they 
themselves  realize.  I  don't  know  whether 
they  have  had  as  tough  a  time  as  you  dur 
ing  this  present  cruise,  but  I  expect  they 
are  going  to  have  one  all  right  enough 
after  landing." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  my  wife. 

"  Well,  that 's  the  way  it  was  with  their 
180 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

ancestors,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago.  Disheartened  by  the  ruggedness  of 
the  country,  by  the  rigors  of  the  climate, 
by  the  hostility  of  the  aborigines  "  — 
began  the  old  fellow  soaringly ;  I  almost 
saw  his  finger  tracing  its  way  over  the 
page  of  history. 

"  Dear  me,  Brown,"  I  interrupted ; 
"  if  you  're  quoting,  give  us  your  author 
and  page  and  paragraph." 

This  rebuke  had  its  effect ;  Brown 
closed  the  volume  of  history,  and  when 
he  resumed,  it  was  in  his  own  words  and 
his  own  way. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  New  England  may 
be  rugged,  but  old  England  is  rugged, 
too.  Talk  about  a  '  stony-hearted  '  Fleet 
Street !  —  why,  the  whole  West  End  is 
adamantine  !  /  never  walked  through 
it,  —  as  a  social  aspirant,  —  but  I  Ve 
heard  of  others  who  have,  and  who  only 
limped  back  footsore  for  their  pains." 

My  wife  stiffened  up  a  little  in  her 
chair,  tilting  her  chin,  and  setting  her 
181 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

lips  in  a  firm,  straight  line.  You  might 
have  fancied  that  here,  at  least,  was  one 
whose  baggage  contained  shoes  suited  to 
the  byways  of  Belgravia. 

"And  then  the  dreadful  English  cli 
mate,"  pursued  old  Brown,  suavely. 
"  Those  benumbing  winters,  those  chill 
ing  springs ;  the  cutting  blasts  of  May, 
the  nipping  frosts  of  June  —  so  deadly  to 
the  newcomer  in  London.  I  have  heard 
that  ambitious  strangers  sometimes  have 
to  chafe  their  noses  even  as  late  as 
July.  I  have  never  been  frost-bitten, 
because  I  have  never  exposed  myself." 
He  smoothed  his  hands  in  a  self-gratula- 
tory  manner. 

Ellen  turned  her  head  slowly  to  one 
side  and  seemed  to  be  inflating  her  nos 
trils  with  a  breath  of  confident  pride. 
Behold  one,  I  almost  heard  her  say,  who 
is  fully  capable  of  guarding  her  own  pro 
boscis. 

"And  then  the  natives,"  proceeded 
old  Brown,  with  his  irritating  affectation 
182 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

of  reverie.  "They  don't,  indeed,  rush 
forth  from  their  wigwams  to  scalp  the 
newly  arrived  stranger  —  nothing  so 
crude,  so  sudden.  They  are  much  more 
cruel  than  that :  they  draw  the  flaps  of 
their  tents  close  to,  and  leave  him  to 
perish  slowly  in  the  cold  outside.  No 
thing  can  placate  them  except  rich  gifts  ; 
if  they  send  you  a  snakeskin,  you  return 
it  filled  with  a  more  politic  stuffing  than 
gunpowder.  You  remit  gold  and  silver 
—yea,  and  precious  stones;  you  contrib 
ute  costly  vessels  and  sumptuous  raiment 
and  "  - 

Absurd  old  Brown  ;  Bancroft  or  Isaiah 
—  it  was  all  alike  to  him  ;  he  could  quote 
one  as  crookedly  as  the  other. 

"  And  if  you  would  join  in  their  dances 
and  eke  persuade  them  to  join  in  yours, 
you  must  double  the  gold  and  treble  the 
jewels  and  heap  up  the  rustling  cou 
pon"— 

Old  Brown  threw  back  his  head  and 
took  in  a  deep  breath.     "  Ain't  it  good 
183 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

to  be  at  sea !  "  he  exclaimed,  "miles  and 
miles  away  from  all  that  empty  folly  !  " 

Ellen  all  this  time  had  been  studying 
Brown  with  a  growing  disapproval,  and 
these  last  words  of  his  apparently  has 
tened  her  determination,  long  since  evi 
dent,  to  speak. 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  she  said  coldly, 
"  that  it 's  right  enough  for  people  to 
know  what  they  want,  and  to  try  to  get 
it,  and  to  go  wherever  they  must  go  to 
get  it.  The  early  settlers  knew  what 
they  wanted,  and  what  they  did  n't  want. 
They  knew  what  they  could  stand,  and 
what  they  could  n't  stand.  They  stood 
things  not  to  their  taste  as  long  as  they 
could,  and  then  they  made  a  change. 
And  it  seems  to  me  [woman's  -  club 
phrase,  again]  that  others  may  have  the 
same  privilege. " 

"  Of  course,"  said  old  Brown,  with  a 

ready   acquiescence   which   showed   his 

perception  of  having  gone  too  far.     "  If 

you  don't  like  the  religious  ritual  of  Eng- 

184 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

land,  you  go  to  America.  If  you  don't 
like  the  social  ritual  of  America,  you  go 
to  England.  Turn  and  turn  about — • 
it 's  all  fair.  Sometimes  one  thing  seems 
the  important  thing;  sometimes  an 
other." 

"  I  don't  believe  that  is  just  what 
Ellen  means,"  I  put  in,  for  I  felt  that  I 
was  now  coming  to  a  better  understand 
ing  of  my  spouse.  "  I  think  she  means 
that  it 's  kind  of  exasperating  to  be  con 
scious  of  your  ability  to  play  a  large 
part,  and  yet  to  be  hampered  by  a 
cramped  stage  and  indifferent  scenery 
and  an  audience  that  isn't  —  well,  that 
is  n't  quite  so  distinguished  as  some 
other  one  you  have  in  mind.  H'm  !  " 

"  Of  course,"  admitted  old  Brown 
again.  "It  must  be  awful  to  have  lots 
of  money  and  yet  to  feel  all  the  time  that 
there  's  no  way  of  spending  it  at  home 
to  your  advantage  and  credit.  Glory,  I 
might  add,  too.  If  that 's  overstrong, 
I  '11  make  it  vainglory.  Think  of  those 
185 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

poor  Southerners  who  used  to  have  to 
come  away  up  to  New  York  to  work  off 
their  dollars,  because  there  was  no  strik 
ing  opportunity  of  doing  so  in  their  own 
district.  Cotton  -  fields  traveled  then  ; 
rents  and  dividends  travel  now." 

"  Those  poor  people  —  precisely,"  said 
Ellen  sympathetically.  "I  was  always 
so  sorry  for  them,  too." 

"  You  were  n't  any  such  thing,"  I  pro 
tested.  "You  never  thought  anything 
about  it  —  you  know  you  didn't.  You 
were  n't  old  enough." 

"  Well,  anyway,  I  'm  sorry  for  them 
now." 

"  No,  you  're  not,  either  ;  they  have  n't 
got  any  more  money —  nowadays." 

"  I  mean  "  —  began  my  wife,  in  a 
vexed  tone.  Then  she  stopped,  disdain 
ful  of  my  little  sally.  "  You  're  begin 
ning  to  feel  better,  are  n't  you  ?  "  she  said. 
"  Had  n't  you  better  let  them  carry  away 
that  plate  of  orange  peel  ? " 

I  was  beginning  to  feel  better  —  so 
186 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

much  better  that  when  we  resumed  our 
comments  and  speculations  after  lunch 
(to  which  meal  I  actually  went  down)  I 
was  able  to  assist  in  devising  a  career 
such  as  should  be  possible  in  England 
for  a  gentleman,  a  scholar,  and  a  land 
lord  :  "  For  of  course  they  '11  have  es 
tates  there,  too,"  said  my  thoughtful 
Ellen.  And  we  agreed  between  our 
selves,  despite  old  Brown,  that  perhaps 
our  late  compatriots  could  seize  —  and 
meant  to  seize  —  larger  opportunities 
than  those  connected  merely  with  balls, 
dinners,  and  house  parties,  —  that  they 
might  be  among  the  first-strung  cables 
in  the  vast  bridge  that  was  soon  and  indis- 
solubly  to  unite —  But  I  am  no  post 
prandial  orator,  as  yet ;  so  I  will  refrain. 
However,  we  generously  extended  them 
invitations  in  the  direction  of  literature 
and  art  and  science  (as  patrons,  at  least), 
and  in  the  direction  of  philanthropy,  of 
education,  —  even  of  politics  ;  "  seeing," 
said  Ellen  again,  "that  England  is  a 
187 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

country  where  it  is  possible  for  a  gen 
tleman  and  a  scholar  and  a  landlord  to 
make  his  weight  felt  in  the  governing  of 
things.  He  is  sure,  also,  of  being  treated 
with  deference  by  the  populace  "  — 

"  Even  if  he  does  n't  deserve  it,"  I 
broke  in. 

"  It 's  very  pleasant,"  rejoined  my  wife, 
"  to  be  treated  with  deference,  whether 
you  deserve  it  or  not.  And  it 's  a  coun 
try,  too,  where  the  very  tradespeople  " 

"  Ellen  !  "  I  cried,  "  no  more.  My  fa 
ther  kept  a  country  store  at  Schenect —  " 

My  wife  turned  her  back  on  me  and 
walked  away.  With  her  the  past  is  past ; 
her  face  is  set  toward  the  future. 

All  through  the  afternoon  I  continued 
to  pick  up.  Toward  dinner-time  I  took 
a  turn  or  two  over  the  deck  in  a  fairly 
sprightly  style  ;  it  seemed  as  absurd  that 
I  should  ever  have  been  seasick  as  it  had 
seemed,  on  land,  that  I  ever  could  be,  or, 
as  it  had  seemed  during  the  actual  trou 
ble,  that  I  ever  could  be  anything  else, 
1 88 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

or  ever  had  been  anything  else.  That 
evening,  as  I  was  in  good  health  and 
spirits,  and  fully  presentable,  Ellen 
brought  me  to  the  notice  of  the  lady 
whom  I  have  alluded  to  throughout, 
thanks  to  Brown's  fancy,  under  a  floral 
designation.  My  partner  thought  (and 
properly  enough,  I  'm  sure)  that  she 
might  strain  her  interest  in  that  direc 
tion  so  far  as  to  bring  forward  her  own 
husband,  and  I  must  say  that  I  was  very 
graciously  received.  I  carefully  toned 
down  the  jauntiness  that  was  the  inevi 
table  accompaniment  of  the  great  and 
agreeable  reaction  from  which  I  was  now 
profiting  ;  I  was  discreet,  brief,  and  a  bit 
distingu^  (I  had  never  made  a  conscious 
study  of  being  any  of  the  three  before), 
and  Ellen  has  assured  me  more  than 
once  since  that  happy  hour  that  I  may 
very  well  hope  for  a  satisfactory  partici 
pation  in  her  own  luminous  future. 

The  next  day  I  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  two  men.    I  had  ten  minutes'  talk 
189 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

with  one  of  them  up  near  the  chart-room 
door ;  and  if  it  had  really  been  a  day  (a 
full  day,  instead  of  a  mere  fragmental 
half  day  to  finish  the  trip)  something 
memorable  might  have  been  said.  But 
it  was  the  eleventh  hour  —  well-nigh, 
indeed,  on  to  the  twelfth  ;  it  was  no  time 
for  confession,  nor  for  profession.  But 
the  new  Englishman  was  friendly  and 
approachable  enough,  and  communica 
tive  enough,  too,  toward  a  ten-minute 
acquaintance.  I  was  very  much  pleased 
with  him,  and  very  much  pleased  with 
myself.  I  trust,  too,  that  he  was  pleased 
with  me ;  for  seldom  have  I  been  more 
solicitous  about  the  impression  I  might 
be  making  on  one  so  much  my  junior. 

Is  it  necessary  for  me  to  state  that 
my  wife  and  I  subsequently  met  these 
distinguished  neo-Anglicans  on  land  ?  I 
trust  not.  But  I  must  disabuse  you,  in 
mere  honesty,  of  the  idea  that  we  met 
them  repeatedly,  or  that  we  became  in 
any  great  degree  intimate  with  them. 
190 


THE   PILGRIM    SONS 

They,  indeed,  entertained  us — but  only 
once.  Perhaps  we  expected  more  —  un 
til  we  recalled  old  Brown's  caustic  obser 
vation  that  our  friends  would  probably 
not  go  to  the  trouble  of  establishing 
themselves  in  England  merely  for  the 
purpose  of  entertaining  their  former  fel 
low  citizens.  We  went  down  into  War 
wick  presently :  Ellen  said  something 
about  the  attractions  of  the  midland 
counties.  The  sole  function  to  which 
our  fellow  voyagers  bade  us  was  quite 
small  and  simple  (though,  indeed,  taste 
ful  and  tactful),  and  it  was  given  while 
things  were  on  the  provisional  footing 
that  preceded  the  family's  full  and  for 
mal  establishment.  But  it  brought  Ellen 
into  immediate  contact  with  three  or  four 
people  of  the  kind  she  wanted  to  reach, 
and  circumstances  made  it  almost  as  easy 
for  her  to  follow  them  up  in  the  country 
as  in  town.  You  have  heard,  dear  reader, 
of  the  Indian  juggler  and  the  mango-tree 
that  sprouts  and  mounts  before  your  very 
191 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

eyes.  Well,  Ellen  is  a  social  mango- 
grower,  if  ever  one  existed  on  this  planet. 
Let  the  tiniest  blade  of  opportunity  show 
itself  upon  the  bare,  hard  field  of  soci 
ety,  and  she  detects  it,  she  coaxes  it,  she 
manipulates  it ;  it  grows,  it  towers,  it 
spreads,  and  presently  we  are  sitting  un 
der  its  shade  and  weaving  chaplets  from 
its  foliage  for  our  triumphant  brows. 
At  least,  this  is  the  sort  of  thing  I  am 
anticipating;  nor  are  you  to  imagine 
for  a  moment  that  Ellen  has  foregone  to 
any  great  degree  her  cultivation  of  the 
Rose.  At  this  very  moment,  while  I  am 
penning  these  few  pages,  Ellen  herself 
sits  near  me,  revolving  in  her  mind  the 
phrases  which  she  shall  employ  in  an 
nouncing  to  our  English  friends  our  re 
turn  to  English  shores,  and  I  am  sure 
that  her  choicest  drops  of  epistolary  dew 
will  fall  upon  the  petals  of  the  Rose.  I 
hope  our  friends  will  be  as  kind  as  she 
expects. 

For  we,  too,  dear  reader,  have  elected 
192 


THE   PILGRIM    SONS 

to  join  the  younger  band  of  pilgrims  ;  we, 
too,  have  determined  to  traverse  the  vasty 
deep  in  pursuit  of  a  higher  and  brighter 
ideal ;  we,  too,  shall  strive  to  merit  the 
tolerance  of  the  great  and  the  deference 
of  the  less.  I  shall  not  say,  however, 
that  we  are  prompted  to  this  course 
through  any  triumph  achieved  in  their 
new  field  by  our  immediate  predecessors. 
For  they  have  not  triumphed  ;  they  have 
established  themselves  creditably,  and 
that  is  all.  Though  they  were  of  the 
first  magnitude  at  home,  they  are  but  un 
distinguished  stars  of  moderate  lustre,  in 
the  great  constellation  of  old  world  so 
ciety.  The  British  empire  has  encom 
passed  them  in  its  vast  maw  like  so 
many  unconsidered  trifles,  and  seems 
to  hold  that  wide  orifice  distended,  as 
if  to  say,  "  Send  on  as  many  more  as  you 
please."  This  attitude  of  the  British 
beast  awes  yet  fascinates  us.  I  am  like  a 
tomtit  before  an  anaconda,  or  a  novice 
climbing  the  terraces  of  Monte  Carlo,  or 


THE    PILGRIM    SON  S 

a  provincial  magnate  just  stepping  into 
Wall  Street.  We  feel  the  full  magnitude 
of  the  monster  for  the  first  time,  but  we 
hope  to  make  a  bigger  mouthful  than 
some  others  have  done  ;  to  confess  the 
precise  truth,  we  scent  a  foeman  worthy 
of  our  steel.  No  too  facile  triumph  for 
my  Ellen.  I  have  every  confidence  in 
her ;  I  am  certain  of  her  coming  out  on 
top.  So  we  return,  now,  to  grapple  with 
the  dragon  in  good  earnest.  St.  George 
be  with  us. 

Our  own  George,  however,  remains 
behind,  disdainful  and  distrustful  of  the 
project.  He  has  an  American  education, 
he  declares,  and  means  to  have  an  Amer 
ican  career.  Very  well ;  he  is  of  age, 
and  must  do  as  he  sees  fit.  But  Emmy 
accompanies  us,  and  we  feel  that  for  an 
American  girl  of  good  position  and  breed 
ing  and  education  any  career  is  possi 
ble.  And  little  Tommy  accompanies  us 
too.  He  is  destined  for  Eton,  and  will 
face  the  future  light-heartedly  enough  in 
194 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

a  high  hat  and  a  wide  collar.  On  the 
Pananglia  to-day  it  is  we  who  occupy  a 
suite  de  luxe  ;  we  are  a  little  choice  of 
ourselves,  and  have  people  to  peep  into 
our  portholes,  just  as  we  ourselves  once 
—  but  never  mind. 

Am  I  a  snob  ?  Nay,  nay,  dear  reader, 
be  not  too  ready  with  your  reply.  It  is 
I  who  have  asked  the  question,  so  allow 
me  to  be  the  one  to  answer  it ;  I  much 
prefer  it  that  way.  Why,  in  the  first 
place,  then,  do  I  put  myself  this  ques 
tion  ?  Because,  whatever  my  faults,  I 
hope  I  am  too  much  of  a  man  to  draw 
attention  to  the  mote  that  is  in  my  wife's 
eye  while  remaining  regardless  of  any 
possible  beam  in  my  own.  Am  I,  then, 
a  snob  ?  I  am  afraid  so.  No  great  one, 
I  trust ;  no  incorrigible  one,  I  am  sure. 
Perhaps  I  have  only  the  making  of  one, 
only  the  bare  beginning  of  one  — per 
haps  only  the  latent  possibility  that  lurks 
in  us  one  and  all.  But  it  is  there  ;  I 
feel  it,  and  I  confess  it.  I  deplore  it,  I 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

almost  blush  for  it ;  sometimes  I  strug 
gle,  however  feebly,  against  it. 

But  I  am  an  Anglo-Saxon,  like  unto 
you,  pitying  reader ;  and  have  enjoyed 
the  atmosphere  of  social  advantage  and 
privilege  and  leisure  —  as  you,  also,  may 
have  done,  or  may  not  have  done.  If 
not,  that  is  the  only  difference  between 
us  —  the  only  reason  why  you  are  not  a 
snob,  too.  You  are  an  Anglo-Saxon,  as 
well  as  I,  and  snobbery  is  in  your  blood 
as  well  as  in  mine.  No  civilization  has 
yet  reached  that  high  stage  in  which  all 
the  virtues  and  graces  are  combined.  If 
you  have  political  inequality,  as  in  Italy 
or  Spain,  then  some  measure  of  equality 
in  every-day  social  intercourse  is  apt  to 
be  evolved,  you  meet  as  man  to  man,  and 
the  snob  suffocates  before  he  is  born. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  have  political 
equality,  as  in  America  or  England,  then 
social  inequality  is  like  enough  to  follow, 
the  natural  kindliness  of  human  inter 
course  is  chilled,  and  the  snob  luxuriates. 
196 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

I  didn't  understand  old  Brown  to  say 
(you  have,  of  course,  detected  this  high 
philosophy  as  his,  rather  than  mine)  that 
this  sort  of  thing  came  about  in  direct 
obedience  to  some  ascertained  law.  No  ; 
he  was  no  bolder  than  to  hint  at  some 
obscure,  inexplicable  principle  of  balance, 
of  compensation,  which  prevented  all  the 
good  things  of  life  from  gravitating  to 
gether  toward  some  one  angle  in  the  ter 
restrial  framework.  In  the  early  winter 
of  our  political  and  social  history  (he 
further  explained)  the  frozen  soil  of  hard 
material  conditions  gave  no  hold  for  this 
particular  plant,  and  the  shrewd  blasts 
of  a  keen  democracy  would  have  nipped 
any  daring  shoot  that  might  have  ap 
peared.  But  the  gentler  days  of  spring 
time  have  now  supervened  ;  the  warm 
sun  of  prosperity  shines  upon  us,  the 
grateful  breezes  of  amenity  now  fan  the 
land,  and  the  sprouting  plant  of  snob- 
bism  waxes  high,  cumbers  the  soil  where 
the  early  Pilgrim  foot  was  planted,  and  is 
197 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

even  wafting  its  insidious  thistle-down 
(if  the  old  fellow  is  to  be  believed)  to 
ward  the  hitherto  unsophisticated  prairies 
of  the  Middle  West.  About  this  last,  I 
am  not  so  sure,  having  never  been  beyond 
the  Alleghanies  ;  but  it  seems  probable 
enough.  If  it  has  n't  reached  them  al 
ready,  it  is  upon  the  way,  all  the  same  ; 
if  it  does  n't  overtake  them  to-day,  it  will 
do  so  to-morrow.  We  shall  all  be  snobs, 
sooner  or  later,  dear  reader;  and  I  re 
gard  myself  as  less  an  offender  than  a 
victim.  And  these  remarks  of  mine  — 
and  Brown's  —  you  are  to  take  not  as 
an  apology,  but  simply  as  an  explanation. 
But  even  here  the  idea  of  compensation 
comes  in  :  we  are  evolving  a  much  needed 
standard  of  manners  and  usages,  and  we 
are  establishing  an  entente  cordiale  be 
tween  the  two  grand  divisions  of  our  race. 
And  as  regards  the  construction  of  the 
great  bridge  that  is  to  join  the  shores 
of  the  new  world  to  those  of  the  old, 
Ellen  and  I  prefer  to  do  our  share  at  the 
198 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

beginning  rather  than  at  the  end.  We 
would  rather  string  the  earlier  cables 
than  merely  be  members  of  the  throng  of 
foot-passengers  that  later  will  tramp  over 
the  completed  structure.  We  may  look 
for  your  praise,  not  your  blame,  it  seems 
to  me,  in  view  of  such  an  ambition. 

Old  Brown  is  doing  what  he  can  to 
help  us  on.  I  refer  once  more  to  his 
letter,  which  was  thrust  into  my  hands 
at  Queenstown,  an  hour  or  two  ago.  His 
researches  on  our  behalf  in  Hampshire 
have  been  crowned  with  complete  success 
—  he  has  found  us  an  ancestor  and  a 
pedigree.  I  expected  no  less,  indeed, 
after  his  brilliant  genealogical  triumph  in 
the  cause  of  the  Pilgrim  Sons.  For  he 
has  at  length  joined  the  Rose  to  the  par 
ent  stem,  and  has  impressed  upon  the 
whole  clan  the  stamp  of  the  highest  dis 
tinction.  It  shows  upon  their  silver, 
their  linen,  their  note-paper,  their  park 
gates,  their  carriage  panels  ;  perhaps,  in 
a  frenzy  of  inexorable  consistency,  he 
199 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

has  even  branded  it  upon  their  butlers 
and  footmen.  After  such  an  achieve 
ment,  what  was  it  to  discover  connec 
tions  for  us  among  the  county  families 
of  Hampshire  ?  My  wife's  grandmother 
was  right  —  her  second  cousin  was  in 
deed  a  lord  ;  and  if  I  could  find  words 
to  express  my  sense  of  the  tact,  the 
discretion,  the  suavity  with  which  Ellen 
will  make  her  approaches  to  these  peo 
ple,  I  should  set  them  down  here,  you 
may  be  sure.  But  I  will  simply  state 
that  she  has  declared  her  intention  to 
resume  her  intimacy  with  the  Mayflow 
ers.  That 's  what  she  calls  it  —  an  "  in 
timacy."  But  I  will  not  recast  her 
phraseology.  We  say,  "  To-morrow  is 
Friday,"  and  "  Next  month  is  March  ;  " 
and  the  same  implied  forecast  of  certainty 
I  shall  permit  to  the  tongue  of  my  clever 
wife.  I  look  upon  that  "intimacy"  as 
one  of  the  certitudes  of  the  immediate 
future. 

Yes,  old  Brown's  letter  is  distinctly 
200 


THE   PILGRIM    SONS 

elate ;  he  feels  his  own  triumph.  Yet 
one  passage  in  it  has  a  cynical  and  sub- 
acid  quality  that  would  annoy  me,  if  I 
did  not  regard  the  whole  thing  as  a  mere 
rhetorical  exercise  ;  for  Brown's  infirmity 
is  growing  upon  him  with  the  years,  and 
sometimes  he  is  florid  and  artificial  be 
yond  all  bounds  of  taste  or  reason.  His 
present  page  makes,  indeed,  no  direct 
reference  to  the  Pilgrim  Sons,  but  what 
he  does  say  gives  me  for  the  first  time 
occasion  to  doubt  that  there  may  be  any 
solid  satisfaction  in  the  fabric  of  their 
success. 

"  And  now,"  he  writes,  in  his  last  para 
graph,  "welcome  to  the  sawdust  palace; 
its  portal  stands  open  for  you.  It  is  mag 
nificent  enough  without,  and  if  it  is  all 
hollowness  within,  may  you  not  discover 
that  too  soon.  But  I  warn  you  that  it  is 
founded  on  a  sapless  selfishness,  and  that 
its  crumbling  walls  are  always  calling  for 
repair,  and  that  the  latest  comers  must 
contribute  the  greatest  share  of  the  labor. 

201 


THE    PILGRIM   SONS 

All  your  spare  hours  you  dance  away  on 
sawdust,  until  your  poor  knees  sink  be 
neath  you  as  the  result  of  your  arduous 
and  aimless  scufflings.  You  feed  on  saw 
dust,  and  the  more  you  are  stuffed  with 
it  the  hollower  and  hungrier  you  become. 
You  think  in  sawdust,  and  your  poor 
brain  becomes  dry  and  disintegrate,  and 
finally  blows  away.  You  dream  of  saw 
dust,  and  wake  from  the  frantic  rivalries 
of  the  scrambling  throng  to  the  real  busi 
ness  of  the  day,  which  is  to  furnish  saw 
dust  and  more  sawdust.  You  must  con 
tribute  it  incessantly,  strictly  of  the  grade 
and  quality  that  the  supervisors  require, 
and  the  more  you  give  the  more  you 
may.  And  in  the  end  you  sigh  for  the 
wholesome  forest  where  grew  all  the 
great  trunks  that  have  been  betrayed 
and  dismembered  merely  to  provide  ma 
terial  for  so  much  empty  and  crumbling 
folly." 

This   is   old  Brown  at  his  best  —  or 
worst.      I  repeat  these  observations  to 

202 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

Ellen,  and  she  says,  "Fudge!"  She 
even  seizes  the  letter,  tears  it  up,  and 
flings  the  fragments  through  the  port 
hole.  This  is  not  altogether  civil  to 
Brown,  who  has  really  done  us  a  sub 
stantial  favor;  but  it  is  just  the  act  to 
restore  my  confidence  and  courage,  and 
I  —  I  need  something  of  the  kind. 
Certainly  the  recollection  of  the  coun 
try  store  at  Schenectady  (which  is  no 
longer  so  freely  mentioned)  has  no  sus 
taining  quality  in  it. 

But  more  than  once  to-day,  in  the  in 
tervals  of  laborious  composition,  I  have 
found  myself  with  my  eyes  fixed  on  the 
distant  Welsh  coast,  repeating  half  aud 
ibly  such  phrases  from  Brown's  letter  as 
I  am  able  to  recall.  Did  he  intend  it  for 
a  caution,  a  gibe,  a  warning,  a  taunt? 
Ah,  well;  the  steamer-chairs  are  being 
collected  in  heaps,  the  stewards  are  hourly 
becoming  more  oppressively  attentive, 
the  invalids  are  crawling  up  to  air  and 
sunlight,  the  gulls  are  circling  round 
203 


THE    PILGRIM    SONS 

our  stern,  the  deck-hands  are  busy  with 
bunting  and  with  the  brass-work  of  the 
gunwales,  I  myself  am  just  preparing 
to  dress  for  my  reception  into  the  vast 
community  of  native  Englishry  ;  and  be 
fore  many  hours  are  past,  we  shall  begin 
to  know. 

204 


PASQUALE'S   PICTURE 


"  BUT  supposing  he  were  not  to  come, 
after  all  ?  "  asks  old  Assunta  with  some 
anxiety. 

"  Never  fear,  madre  mia,"  returns 
Pasquale,  confidently.  "  Have  I  not  said 
that  he  is  a  gran  signor  inglese?  He 
will  do  as  he  has  promised." 

Ah,  that  was  a  day  long  remembered 
in  Murano.  What  a  wave  of  excitement 
rippled  over  the  town,  what  an  impulse 
of  curiosity  brought  everybody  flocking 
to  old  Assunta's  house!  Not  really 
everybody,  of  course  ;  for  Murano  was 
not  quite  so  small  a  place  as  that  —  no, 
indeed  !  Ah,  those  forestieri !  —  they 
seemed  to  suppose  that  our  Murano  con 
sisted  of  nothing  but  the  basilica  and  the 
205 


PASQUALE    S    PICTURE 

bead-factory.  As  if  there  were  not  the 
palace  with  the  winged  lion  standing  on 
his  column  in  the  square  before  it,  and 
the  broad  canal  with  the  bridge  crossing 
over  it  in  one  big  arch,  and  the  gondolas 
lying  there  by  the  riva  —  as  many  as  fif 
teen  or  twenty  at  a  time  !  What  more 
would  you  have  —  what  more  was  there 
in  Venice  itself  ?  Small  ?  There  was 
Torcello  ;  that  was  truly  of  a  smallness. 
But  Murano  ?  —  not  at  all ! 

Most  of  the  gondolas  are  lying  by  the 
riva  to-day,  almost  under  the  windows  of 
the  old  house  where  Assunta  lives  with 
her  son  Pasquale  and  her  orphaned  niece 
Lucia.  The  finest  of  all  the  boats  is  Pas 
quale' s  own,  and  the  smartest  of  all  the 
boatmen  is  Pasquale  himself  —  with  good 
reason,  too ;  our  brave  Pasquale  is  the 
hero  of  the  hour.  For  the  gran  signor 
with  whom  he  spent  a  day  on  the  lagoon 
last  week  is  coming  to  Murano  expressly 
to  make  Pasquale' s  picture.  They  had 
gone  together  to  Torcello,  and  to  San 
206 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

Michele,  and  to  the  Lido  —  in  fine,  where 
had  they  not  been  with  that  box  on  three 
legs  and  a  hole  in  one  side  ?  Pasquale 
has  not  seen  the  result  of  all  this  gon- 
doliering,  but  his  faith  is  great.  So  he 
stands  here  this  sunny  afternoon  amidst 
his  circle  of  friends  and  acquaintances ; 
and  he  wears  a  mighty  black  felt  hat 
upon  his  shapely  head,  and  the  big  collar 
of  a  wonderful  new  plaid  shirt  —  his 
mother's  express  make  —  lies  over  his 
broad,  square  shoulders;  and  Assunta 
regards  him  with  a  fond  pride,  and  Lucia 
with  a  timid  adoration,  and  Girolamo, 
whose  own  boat  is  not  nearly  so  fine  as 
Pasquale's,  with  a  consuming  envy,  while 
everybody,  flocking  down  and  around, 
choruses  the  advantage  of  having  made 
such  a  friend. 

And,  best  of  all,  the  picture  is  to  re 
main  Pasquale's  own.  Remind  your 
selves,  friends,  of  the  pittore  tedesco  — 
the  German  painter  who  came  here  last 
year.  He  made  Pasquale's  picture.  Ah, 
207 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

yes,  to  be  sure ;  that  pale  little  young 
man,  so  cross  and  snappy,  with  specta 
cles —  just  like  an  old  woman.  Fancy 
our  Pasquale  in  spectacles  ;  —  impossi 
ble  !  Well,  he  made  Pasquale  get  out 
that  old  black  cloak,  that  he  hardly 
ever  thinks  of  wearing ;  and  he  had  him 
stand  this  way,  you  know,  as  he  would 
never  stand  of  his  own  mind  in  the 
world ;  and  he  made  his  lips  too  red,  and 
his  cheeks  as  brown  as  —  why,  really  as 
brown  as  that  coat ;  and  in  the  end  he 
just  handed  him  a  couple  of  francs,  with 
never  a  "  grazie,"  and  went  off  without 
giving  us  more  than  half  a  chance  to  see 
the  picture.  Ah,  but  it  was  a  bad  pic 
ture  —  ma,  brutto  ;  we  did  n't  want  to 
see  it  —  hah  !  But  the  signor  inglese, 
you  understand  — 

Ah,  but  here  is  the  signor  inglese 
coming  up  the  canal  this  very  moment. 
Oh  joy !  oh  transport  !  And  his  blue 
eyes  are  twinkling  merrily,  and  all  his 
white  teeth  show  in  a  gay  smile,  and  the 
208 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

sunlight  glints  across  his  yellow  beard ; 
and  he  has  a  pair  of  long  brown  woolen 
stockings  on  his  legs,  and  a  broad  blue 
cap,  with  a  big  blue  topknot  in  the  mid 
dle,  set  sidewise  on  his  curly  head.  Not 
like  our  Pasquale  —  tut?  altro ;  but  a 
gallant  gentleman  indeed,  old  Assunta 
ungrudgingly  assents.  And  here  is  little 
Gigi  turning  multitudinous  handsprings 
upon  the  pavement,  and  up  there  is  old 
Catarina  at  her  window,  sourly  surveying 
the  whole  scene.  Aha !  when  has  old 
Catarina  ever  had  a  guest  like  this  ?  And 
everybody  hastens  to  help  the  signer 
alight.  Ho,  there !  pass  out  the  three- 
legged  box  with  the  hole  in  it !  Here, 
Gigi,  you  young  rascal,  take  this  other 
box  full  of  bottles  and  things,  and  mind 
you  have  a  care  !  Welcome,  Eccellenza, 
to  Murano  ! 

And  little  Lucia,  how  happy  she  is  ! 

Thanks  to  this  gracious  gentleman,  they 

shall  have  Pasquale  with  them  always, 

after  this.     When   he   goes   to   Venice 

209 


PASQUALE    S    PICTURE 

now  and  then,  he  will  yet  leave  himself 
behind  in  Murano  ;  and  if  he  should  ever 
happen  to  spend  a  week  on  the  main 
land  again  —  ah,  what  a  long,  long  week 
it  would  be  !  —  they  should  still  see  him 
every  day  of  his  absence  all  the  same. 
Ah,  what  a  joy  this  portrait  would  al 
ways  remain  for  them  ! 

But,  oh  me,  who  is  this  that  comes 
tripping  so  pertly  and  so  airily  across 
the  bridge  ?  Who  but  that  artful  Giu- 
seppina,  with  her  black  lovelocks,  and 
those  hateful  blue  ribbons,  and  that  odi 
ous  string  of  yellow  beads  around  her 
neck  !  Why  should  she  be  coming  along 
just  at  this  time  ?  Why  was  n't  she  at 
the  Fabbrica,  where  she  belonged  ?  Any 
body  could  have  beads  enough  who 
worked  where  they  were  made  !  So  fa 
miliar,  too,  with  Pasquale,  and  so  saucy 
toward  the  signor !  Oh  dear,  oh  dear  ! 
where  was  the  day's  pleasure  now  ? 

S'  accomodi,  Eccellenza.  Where  shall 
we  stand  this  strange  machine  ?  And 
210 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

where  shall  we  put  all  these  curious  little 
bottles,  each  with  a  different  color  and 
each  with  a  different  smell  ?  —  Yes,  that 
will  do  very  well  —  bene,  benissimo.    And 
now  we  will   proceed  with  the  picture 
without  loss  of  time.     Let  the  good  Pas- 
quale  stand  just  about  here,  please,  and 
rest  his  eye  about  there,  and  keep  very 
quiet  just  a  moment.    Now,  then.    Giro- 
lamo  sniffs  ;  he  has  seen  the  same  thing 
done  —  Dio  mio,  how   many   times  !  — 
over  in  Venice  itself.     Assunta  crushes 
him  with  one  look.     Quiet,  please,  my 
friends.     A  deep  silence  falls,  while  the 
great  miracle  is  being  wrought.     An  old 
crone  scuffling  by  is  frozen  into  stone  by 
a  multitude  of  hisses.     Not  a  soul  whis 
pers.  —  There,  now ;  that 's  all. 

What !  done  already  ?  Why,  that  Ger 
man  painter  worked  two  or  three  hours, 
and  even  then  —  JSh !  the  signer  is  ask 
ing  old  Assunta  for  a  dark  room  and  a 
candle-end.  Mystery  !  Perplexed  Assunta 
—  what  shall  she  do  ?  A  dark  room  and 


211 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

a  candle  !  What  would  the  parroco  say 
to  this  ?  —  he  who  had  given  them  all, 
only  last  Sunday,  so  fatherly  a  warning 
against  the  powers  of  darkness.  Was 
this  all  quite  —  quite  right  and  proper  ? 

Oh,  yes,  indeed  ;  right  and  proper,  and 
quite  indispensable.  So  the  magician  is 
lost  to  the  general  gaze  for  a  few  min 
utes.  When  he  returns  his  finger-tips 
are  more  or  less  stained  and  discolored, 
and  he  carries  in  one  hand  a  square  sheet 
of  glass  which  he  treats  very  carefully 
and  scrutinizes  closely,  with  one  eye 
shut.  Oho  !  this,  then,  is  the  picture ! 
Come  now  ;  let  us  see  how  it  looks. 

Yes,  but  is  it  the  picture,  after  all  ? 
How  can  it  be? — this  poor,  pale, yellow 
affair  that  is  not  to  be  seen  at  all  save 
when  held  just  so,  and  that  looks  quite 
as  much  like  anybody  else  as  like  Pas- 
quale.  Our  new  friend  is  doubtless 
very  kind  and  very  clever,  and  means 
well  enough  ;  but  —  Pasquale  himself  is 
quite  crestfallen,  and  Assunta  looks  very 

212 


PASQUALE    S   PICTURE 

dubious  indeed,  and  Girolamo  smiles  in 
open  derision ;  while  poor  little  grieved 
and  disappointed  Lucia  almost  bursts 
into  tears  when  Giuseppina  —  ah,  that 
Giuseppina !  —  touches  Pasquale's  shoul 
der  ever  so  lightly,  and  saucily  says  :  — 

"  Our  Pasquale  has  become  a  forestiere 
himself — proprio  un  tedesco ;  he  must 
have  his  pair  of  spectacles  too ! " 

But  the  signer  takes  all  this  with  a 
careless  smile;  then,  in  due  course,  he 
pulls  out  a  sharp  lead  pencil,  and  makes 
a  few  dots  and  scratches  here  and  there 
on  the  shadowy  face  before  him.  Giro 
lamo  laughs  aloud  ;  the  enraged  Assunta 
glares  with  almost  equal  severity  on  both. 
And  then  the  signor,  with  a  reproving 
shake  of  the  head,  sets  down  the  glass 
very  carefully  in  full  sunlight,  and  directs 
everybody  to  fall  back  beyond  the  pos 
sibility  of  throwing  a  shadow  upon  the 
image.  So,  then,  there  is  something 
more  to  be  done  still ;  perhaps  this  is  n't 
the  real  picture  after  all.  Why,  look ! 
213 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

look  !  I  beg  of  you  !  The  signor  has 
placed  a  bit  of  paper  under  the  glass, 
and  the  paper  is  turning  black  before 
our  very  eyes  !  This,  then,  is  the  pic 
ture,  the  real  picture,  at  last !  Evviva  ! 
Ev- 

Quiet,  my  good  people,  for  just  a  mo 
ment  more.  One  or  two  small  things 
still  to  be  done,  and  then  the  picture  will 
be  ready  to  look  at,  to  touch,  to  do  what 
you  please  with.  But  for  the  present, 
pazienza.  Then  comes  the  last  act  of  all 
in  this  thrilling  drama  :  the  signor  whips 
out  a  sharp  little  pair  of  scissors  from 
his  vest  pocket,  trims  the  picture  along 
the  edges,  fastens  it  deftly  upon  a  stiff 
piece  of  cardboard,  gives  it  a  parting 
rub  with  his  elbow,  and  then,  holding  it 
high  overhead  in  his  splotched  and  stained 
fingers,  gayly  cries  :  — 

"  Eccolo !     Ecco     nostro    bravo    Pas- 
qtiale  !  "     And  then,  with  a  flourishing 
bow  and   an   added  "  Complimenti,"  he 
hands  it  over  to  the  gondolier. 
214 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

At  last,  the  picture  !  It  is  stupendo ; 
it  is  magnifico  !  Wonder  ;  delight ;  ec 
stasy  !  When  has  Pasquale  ever  been  so 
proud  and  happy  ?  When  has  Lucia  ever 
felt  so  sweet  and  tremulous  a  joy  ?  And 
when,  when  has  old  Assunta  ever  been 
beheld  in  such  a  transport  as  this  ?  With 
a  loud  scream  of  delight  she  catches  the 
picture  from  Pasquale' s  hand,  kisses  it 
again  and  again,  and  bursts  into  a  flood  of 
happy  tears.  "  Look  !  "  she  cries  ;  "  look, 
Lucia !  See  the  eyes,  the  mouth,  the 
hair,  and  every  single  little  button  on 
the  shirt !  Ah,  veramente,  it  is  my  own 
dear  son  !  "  Oh,  was  there  another  such 
son  in  all  Murano  ?  And  was  there  an 
other  such  picture  in  all  the  world  ? 

Comparative  quiet  comes  presently ; 
and  the  signor,  who  has  been  constrained 
for  the  moment  to  turn  away  his  face, 
—  humbly  thankful,  perhaps,  to  have 
been  made  the  instrument  of  so  great  a 
joy, — becomes  himself  again;  and  with 
mischief  in  his  eye  he  turns  to  Pasquale. 
215 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

"  I  can  make  you  another  picture  just  as 
well  as  not,  if  you  say.  Would  n't  you 
like  one  for" —  And  he  glances  teas- 
ingly  from  Giuseppina  to  Lucia. 

Poor  Pasquale  glances  back  from  Lu 
cia  to  Giuseppina,  and  shuffles  and 
blushes  and  stammers,  and  finally  de 
clares  —  oh,  how  reluctantly  !  —  that 
this  one  will  be  quite  enough.  Ahi,  that 
Giuseppina  !  —  she  is  to  blame  for  this. 
And  only  see  her  now :  setting  that 
necklace,  that  her  mother  never  lets  her 
wear  except  on  Sundays  and  festas,  and 
throwing  contritely  coquettish  glances  at 
the  signor,  and  only  too  openly  hoping 
that  he  will  offer  to  make  her  picture  as 
well.  But  he  does  nothing  of  the  kind. 
He  merely  looks  at  his  soiled  fingers  — 
obviously  it  is  his  habit  to  relegate  un 
pleasant  details  to  an  assistant  —  and 
says  that  his  little  task  is  done,  then,  and 
that  if  they  will  allow  him  to  wash  his 
hands  he  will  get  his  things  together 
and  try  to  reach  Venice  before  sunset. 
216 


PASQUALE    S   PICTURE 

What !  leave  immediately  ?  Old  As- 
sunta  will  not  hear  of  such  a  thing. 
Their  poor  house  and  everything  it  con 
tains  is  at  the  disposal  of  his  illustrious 
highness.  So  for  a  half  hour  or  more 
the  little  courtyard  is  brightened  with 
all  the  hospitality  of  fervent  gratitude. 
There  is  a  table  spread  under  the  arbor, 
with  bread  and  cheese  and  wine  for 
everybody  who  chooses  to  partake.  And 
the  big  bunch  of  grapes  that  has  been 
ripening  this  past  week  for  the  parrocds 
Sunday  dinner  is  cut  down  and  placed 
beside  the  signer's  plate.  Can  anything 
be  too  good  for  him  ?  No,  indeed  ;  and 
so  \hQparroco  must  wait. 

Ho,  friends,  the  gran  signor  stands  to 
depart  !  Hi,  Gigi,  you  little  monkey, 
lend  a  hand  again  with  all  those  things  ! 
Ha,  what  is  it  you  have  let  drop  ?  Alas  ! 
it  is  the  glass  picture  that  falls  upon  the 
pavement  and  breaks  into  a  thousand 
fragments,  you  careless  wicked  boy !  No 
matter,  my  friends  ;  you  have  the  paper 
217 


PASQUALE    S    PICTURE 

picture  all  safe,  and  that  is  the  chief 
concern.  So,  then,  good-by.  Oh,  but 
dismiss  that  other  boatman,  there ;  the 
brave  Pasquale  will  himself  conduct  his 
Excellency  back  to  Venice.  Again,  then, 
addio!  A  rivederci!  Buon  viaggio  !  Addio, 
Eccellenza  !  And  so  they  go  down  the 
canal,  Pasquale' s  vast  hat  flapping  to 
and  fro  in  exact  accord  with  the  rhythmi 
cal  movements  of  his  strong  and  supple 
frame,  and  the  gran  signor  gayly  waving 
his  cap  with  one  hand  and  vigorously 
brandishing  his  stick  with  the  other, 
until  a  quick  turn  in  the  middle  distance 
puts  them  altogether  out  of  sight. 

ii 

What  need  to  say  how  precious  the 
picture  became  in  old  Assunta's  eyes  ; 
how  jealously  it  was  guarded  from  all 
harm  or  mishap ;  how  proudly  it  was 
displayed  before  the  admiring  gaze  of 
friends  and  privileged  visitors  ?  With 
what  care  was  it  put  away  in  that  par- 
218 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

ticular  little  drawer  where  she  kept  her 
crucifix  and  the  rosary  blessed  by  the 
good  Pio  Nono  ;  and  with  what  state  was 
it  brought  out  on  that  Sunday  when 
Francesco  and  his  wife  came  over  from 
the  Fondamenta  Nuove !  How  many 
times  she  told  the  story  of  the  picture, 
and  how  many  people  listened  to  her 
tale ! 

But  if  the  picture  were  precious  now, 
how  doubly  precious  was  it  to  become 
hereafter.  Oh,  fatal  day  —  the  day  when 
Pasquale  went  over  the  lagoon  to  Venice, 
and  was  brought  back  stark  and  drip 
ping,  with  his  dark  locks  all  matted  to 
gether  and  his  bright  eyes  forever  closed. 
A  curse  upon  the  times !  First  it  was 
theferrovia  that  stretched  its  vast  length 
across  the  water  and  drove  the  poor 
boatmen  of  Mestre  from  the  lagoon. 
Now  it  is  the  vapori  that  go  puffing  and 
shrieking  up  and  down  the  reaches  of  the 
Canalazzo,  crowded  with  swarms  of  chat 
tering,  heartless  strangers;  that  make 
219 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

night  hideous  and  day  detestable ;  that 
undermine  incessantly  the  foundations 
of  church  and  palace  ;  and  that  rob  our 
dear  sons  of  their  livelihood  and  even  of 
their  lives.  For  so  much  had  the  steam 
ers  done  for  the  unfortunate  Pasquale 
within  one  little  month  from  that  day 
in  Murano,  and  within  a  week  from  their 
first  appearance  on  the  Canal.  Care 
lessly  emerging  from  a  narrow  rio  that 
had  its  outlet  near  a  landing-place,  he 
encountered  one  of  these  passing  mon 
sters,  and  had  been  caught,  overturned, 
entangled,  held  under,  drowned.  Ter 
rible  was  old  Assunta's  anguish  when 
they  brought  his  dead  body  back  to  Mu 
rano ;  and  less  violent,  but  no  less  in 
tense  and  inconsolable,  had  been  her  grief 
when,  the  day  following,  the  little  funeral 
train  glided  back  from  San  Michele  and 
left  Pasquale  still  to  float  on,  and  eter 
nally,  with  all  the  Venice  that  had  been 
and  was  not. 

Arrived  at  the  doorway  of  the  stricken 

220 


PASQUALE    S   PICTURE 

and  desolate  house,  Lucia  hastened  on 
ahead.  When  Assunta  entered  the  fa 
miliar  but  blighted  chamber,  the  picture, 
now  fastened  on  the  wall,  met  her  first 
glance.  Ah,  the  picture  !  In  her  great 
distress  she  had  all  but  forgotten  it,  and 
now  her  Pasquale,  dead  and  buried 
though  he  be,  smiles  gravely  and  fondly 
down  upon  her.  After  her  first  loud 
and  passionate  outcry  the  possibilities  of 
peace  and  reconciliation  seem  less  and 
less  remote.  A  thousand  blessings  upon 
the  good  Madonna  who  had  sent  so  kind 
a  friend  to  leave  them  such  a  memo 
rial  as  this  !  Tears  of  gratitude  mingle 
with  tears  of  grief,  and  the  acuteness  of 
her  first  sorrow  is  over  and  past.  Their 
Pasquale  is  with  them  yet.  The  picture 
shall  remain  where  it  now  is,  a  perpetual 
shrine,  and  he  shall  be  present  to  them 
always,  always  —  morning,  noon,  and 
night. 

There  are  those  upon  whom  fate  en 
joins  the  graceless  task  of  being  cruel  to 

221 


PASQUALE    S    PICTURE 

be  kind  ;  and  there  are  those  to  whom  it 
assigns  the  infinitely  harder  lot  of  being 
kind  but  to  be  cruel.  The  genial  young 
gentleman  who  whiled  away  an  idle  af 
ternoon  in  that  old  Italian  town  never 
knew  what  a  trail  of  doubt  and  despair 
and  utter  desolation  his  visit  left,  in  the 
end,  behind  him.  And  may  he  never 
learn  ! 

It  is  only  the  third  morning  after  Pas- 
quale's  death,  and  Assunta  stands  there 
before  his  picture,  her  hands  tightly 
clasped  together  and  her  face  clouded 
with  doubt  and  anxiety.  She  rubs  her 
old  eyes  ;  can  it  be  that  they  are  coming 
to  be  less  sharp  and  sure  than  they  have 
been  heretofore  ?  Hardly  ;  for  note  that 
birdcage  in  the  window  across  the  Canal 
—  she  can  see  plainly  every  stick  of  it, 
and  the  bird  inside,  as  well.  She  looks 
about  the  room  anxiously.  Can  it  be 
that  it  is  less  clearly  lighted  than  usual  ? 
No  ;  for  the  sunlight  streams  freely  in, 
illuminating  every  object  about  her. 
222 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

What,  then,  is  the  trouble  ?  Can  it  be 
in  the  picture  itself  ?  Let  us  hear  what 
Lucia  thinks  about  it.  And  Lucia,  be 
ing  called,  looks  at  the  picture  for  a  mo 
ment,  very  intently  and  very  seriously. 

"  Madonna  mia,  but  it  seems  to  be 
fading,"  she  murmurs.  —  Fading. 

Ah,  my  gay  and  gracious  young  ama 
teur,  are  you  quite  sure  that  in  all  the 
haste  and  excitement  of  the  moment  you 
carried  out  completely  every  step  of  your 
process?  Let  us  but  hope  so,  for  old 
Assunta's  sake. 

"  Oh,  what  a  pity  it  is,"  she  says  a 
little  sadly,  "that  it  should  not  have 
stayed  as  it  was  at  first.  But  no  matter ; 
it  is  still  our  Pasquale  —  caro  ! " 

A  sudden  thought  strikes  Lucia.  She 
looks  anxiously,  timidly,  compassionately 
at  the  old  woman,  yet  cannot  find  the 
heart  to  say  a  word.  But  she  watches 
the  picture.  There  seems  to  be  no 
change  at  the  end  of  one  hour  ;  none  at 
the  end  of  two.  By  afternoon,  however, 
223 


PASQUALE    S    PICTURE 

there  is  a  change  —  the  picture  is  dim 
mer  ;  only  a  little,  but  dimmer  all  the 
same.  Assunta  sees  it  too.  And  they 
both  feel  together  that  the  picture  not 
merely  has  faded,  but  is  fading  all  the 
time.  And  neither  dares  ask  the  other 
how  all  this  is  going  to  end. 

Assunta  feels  that  something  must  be 
done,  and  done  at  once.  To  whom  shall 
she  turn  ?  Who  will  be  most  likely  to  as 
sist  her  at  this  juncture  ?  She  comes  to 
a  decision  :  she  will  go  to  the  libraioy  that 
little  old  man  who  keeps  a  shop  around 
the  corner,  who  sells  books  that  the 
learned  can  read,  who  has  that  beautiful 
image  of  the  Madonna  in  his  window  ; 
and  who,  come  to  think,  was  the  very  one 
who  sold  her  that  print  of  the  blessed 
St.  Francis  only  a  fortnight  ago.  Why 
had  n't  she  thought  of  him  before  ? 
There  was  a  man  who  would  know  all 
about  pictures,  indeed !  —  let  him  be 
consulted  without  loss  of  time.  And  the 
libraio  comes  blinking  to  the  front  of  his 
224 


PASQUALE    S    PICTURE 

dingy  little  shop,  and  holds  the  picture 
up  to  the  light  with  his  fat  hands,  and 
rambles  vaguely  through  a  maze  of  words 
that  has  to  do  with  everything  but  his 
own  entire  ignorance  of  the  matter,  and 
sends  poor  Assunta  home  with  a  dazed 
head  and  an  aching  heart. 

She  dreads  to-morrow.  How  will  the 
picture  look  then  ?  she  asks  herself  a 
thousand  times  over.  When  to-morrow 
comes  she  is  standing  before  the  picture 
—  which  is  now  duller  and  dimmer  than 
ever  —  questioning,  with  locked  fingers 
and  a  tear-worn  face,  if  no  agency  nor 
any  power  can  stop  this  dread  fatality. 
Is  she  doomed  to  remain  in  helpless  con 
templation  of  such  slow-wrought  ruin  ? 
Must  she  watch  powerlessly  the  sparkle 
fade  from  those  bright  eyes,  the  smile 
pass  away  from  those  fond  lips  ?  No ; 
there  is  help  for  her  —  there  must  be  — 
somehow,  somewhere.  She  will  go  to 
the  parroco,  who  has  never  failed  her  yet 
in  time  of  need.  She  will  lay  the  whole 
225 


PASQUALE    S    PICTURE 

matter  before  him  and  pray  for  his  as 
sistance. 

So,  with  the  picture  in  her  hand,  she 
trudges  confidently  through  the  sun  — 
the  fierce  and  blinding  sun,  the  cruel, 
remorseless,  destructive  sun,  that  is  but 
too  surely  undoing  all  that  he  had  done 
for  them  —  to  the  house  of  the  parish 
priest.  And  the  parroco  listens  to  her 
kindly  and  patiently,  and  twitches  at  his 
shabby  gown,  and  tugs  at  his  grimy  col 
lar,  and  hems  and  haws,  and  rolls  his 
blue  handkerchief  into  a  big  round  ball 
to  rub  his  sharp  old  nose,  and  hopes  that 
with  faith  and  patience  all  may  yet  be 
well  and  —  and —  Oh,  who  would  have 
believed  it  ?  Who  could  have  thought 
it  true  ?  The  parroco  himself,  her  main 
prop,  her  chief  reliance,  to  fail  her  at  a 
time  like  this  !  Sick  and  dizzy  and  de 
spairing,  she  turns  her  weary  steps  home 
ward. 

The  picture  goes  on  fading.  Every 
half  hour  brings  its  difference  now. 
226 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

With  a  strong  light  and  an  intent  regard 
the  several  features  may  yet  be  distin 
guished ;  but  they  are  fading,  fading, 
fading  all  the  time,  as  stars  do  before  the 
crude  and  garish  coming  of  the  cold  first 
light  of  a  winter  morning ;  and  now  and 
then  some  one  of  them  goes  out  alto 
gether  and  for  aye.  Finally  comes  the 
day  —  Assunta  is  at  home  alone  —  when 
even  the  outline  of  the  general  mass  fades 
away  as  all  else  has  faded,  and  the  old 
woman,  pressing  her  fingers  to  her  ach 
ing  eyes,  and  giving  out  a  bitter  and 
hopeless  cry,  feels  that  now,  indeed,  Pas- 
quale  has  gone  from  her  forever,  and  that 
a  universal  darkness  has  overtaken  all 
things. 

"  I  have  lost  him  twice !  "  she  wails,  and 
falls  back  utterly  crushed  and  broken. 

And  yet  after  all  this,  does  there  not 
remain  one  final  resort  that  cannot  fail  ? 
Is  there  not  one  power  to  whom  she  can 
make  a  last  and  sure  appeal  ?  She  rises 
from  the  fragments  of  her  scanty  repast, 
227 


PASQUALE'S  PICTURE 

new  vigor  in  her  step  and  fresh  resolu 
tion  in  her  face.  She  locks  the  door, 
crosses  the  courtyard,  turns  down  the 
riva,  and  directs  her  steps  toward  the  ca 
thedral.  The  neighbors  cannot  counsel 
her;  \heparroco  cannot  assist  her;  she 
will  appeal  to  the  pity  of  the  Blessed 
Madonna  herself. 

Lucia  returned  home  at  twilight.  The 
house  stood  deserted  :  no  light,  no  fire,  no 
inmates.  On  the  table  were  the  scanty 
remnants  of  Assunta's  midday  meal,  but 
Assunta  herself  was  nowhere  to  be  seen, 
nor  had  she  been  observed  about  the 
place  at  any  time  during  the  afternoon. 
Some  vague  instinct  prompted  the  girl 
to  direct  her  search  toward  the  cathedral. 
She  entered  the  dim  precincts  of  the 
church  at  dusk,  just  as  a  lingering  devo 
tee  or  two  were  passing  out,  and  as  the 
sacristan,  in  his  blue  blouse,  was  taking 
up  the  last  panful  of  sweepings  from  the 
seared  and  crackled  pavement.  Aside 
from  him  there  appeared  to  be  no  one 
228 


PASQUALE    S   PICTURE 

within ;  the  church  seemed  to  stand  alto 
gether  empty.  Or,  no ;  not  quite.  For 
from  the  darkening  glory  of  the  apse  an 
immemorial  Madonna  frowned  down  her 
grim  and  inexorable  refusal ;  while  on 
the  chill  altar  steps  below,  a  heartbroken 
old  woman,  with  a  faded  brown  card 
clutched  in  her  stiffening  ringers,  bowed 
her  gray  head  meekly  and  eternally  be 
fore  this  court  of  last  appeal. 
229 


CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS^  U.  S.  A. 

BLECTROTYPED  AND  PRINTED  BY 

H.  O.  HOUGHTON  AND  CO. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL.  NO.  642-3405 
This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


ED 


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